The frustration was evident.
From Georgia coach Mark Fox down to his players, all were at a loss to explain another poor shooting performance in a 68-56 loss to Youngstown State in the first round of the Legends Classic at Stegeman Coliseum on Monday night.
Georgia (1-1) shot 32.1 percent from the field (17-for-53), an improvement from its 12.5 percent shooting in the first half, when the Bulldogs missed open looks all over the court.
“They came in here and beat our tail,” Fox said. “We set the game back 10 years the way we played offensively in the first half.”
The poor shooting was a carryover from Georgia’s opener, a 68-62 win over Jacksonville on Friday. Despite that victory, the Bulldogs didn’t score from the field in the final 6:19 and shot 30.4 percent (7-for-23) in the second half.
On Monday, they made one shot from the field in the first 7:55 and finished the first half just 3-of-24.
Combine the second half of Friday’s game with the first half of Monday’s game and the Bulldogs went into halftime with 10 field goals in its previous 46 shots (21.7 percent).
“We didn’t shoot the ball very well and put a lot of pressure on our defense,” Georgia’s Kentavious Caldwell-Pope said. “We’ve got to get some things corrected. We got too far behind and when it came to the moment of truth, we didn’t make enough plays to get ourselves out of the hole.”
Caldwell-Pope hit five 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 27 points, but had no offensive support.
Marcus Thornton had eight points, but Nemanja Djurisic, who had 14 points and 12 rebounds in the opener, repeatedly had scoring opportunities inside, but was 0-for-9 from the field and scored just two points.
“I think this is the first time I have this many missed layups,” Djurisic said. “I just couldn’t get back into rhythm. I was trying very hard and they were passing me the ball. They were very trusting. Very, very frustrating. I can’t say much about it.”
Youngstown State led throughout, but Georgia rallied to start the second half and cut the lead to 32-29 on Caldwell-Pope’s 3-pointer with 15:30 left. He picked up his third foul and left for four minutes, but the Bulldogs stayed close, trailing 40-33 with 10:22 left.
Youngstown State (2-0) then put the game away with an 11-0 run.
YSU’s Kamren Belin, who is from Marietta and played at Walton, made two free throws and hit a 3-pointer before Kendrick Perry scored the next six points for a 51-33 lead with 7:48 remaining.
Perry, who led the Horizon League in scoring last year, led the Penguins with 23 points. Belin added 17.
“We got beat by a good team,” Thornton said. “Some days shots just do not go in, and (Monday) was one of those days for everybody. We can’t think about what other people are going to be saying about our team. We just have to pick our heads up and move forward.”
Youngstown State also out-rebounded the Bulldogs 42-31, had seven blocks and forced Georgia into 15 turnovers.
“The list of things we need to address, if you think of something about basketball, we have to address it,” Fox said. “We have a lot of things we have to clean up.”
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