Athens – On Dec. 17, Georgia was 2-7 and looking like one of the worst teams in the country. On Jan. 14, Georgia was 0-3 in league play and looking like the worst team in a bad SEC. On Feb. 9, these same Bulldogs – the same but different – won their fifth consecutive conference game, something no Georgia team had managed in a dozen years.
This tells us that Georgia wasn’t as awful as it looked. It also tells us that, merely by not being awful, you can climb a fair distance in contemporary college basketball.
The Bulldogs won a game here Saturday in which they managed 12 baskets in 40 minutes. (That’s one hoop every 200 seconds.) “Very few times do you do that,” Georgia coach Mark Fox conceded, but his team didn’t just scrape by. It seized an 11-1 lead and never let Texas A&M draw even, and the Aggies are stout enough to have beaten Kentucky in Rupp Arena and Missouri in College Station on Thursday.
(Fun Fact No. 1: The last time Georgia scored fewer than 12 baskets in a victory was against Mississippi State in 1982. Georgia had 10 hoops in that game, which was played before the advent of the shot clock, and came against an opponent that, under coach Bob Boyd, held the ball against everybody.)
Georgia won because it limited A&M to 12 baskets and because its star, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, didn’t make a hoop but neutralized the Aggies’ estimable Elston Turner, who’d gone for 40 points in Rupp. Caldwell-Pope took three shots, missing all, but finished with 10 points; Turner needed 14 shots to score 13 points.
(Fun Fact No. 2: Turner's father, also named Elston, led Ole Miss to the 1981 SEC tournament championship. The Rebels beat Georgia 66-62 in the final. Dominique Wilkins was the tournament MVP.)
Said Fox: “It’s unique when guys like that guard each other. Sometimes you’ve got your leading scorer guarding a stiff, but that was a neat matchup.”
If you’re getting the impression that defense carried the day … well, that 52-46 final score told no lies. Fox called the game “a slugfest,” and no one rose to object. Both teams guarded hard and shot terribly. Georgia made six more turnovers than baskets and was clearly the better team, which tells us something about these Bulldogs but even more about the state of their sport.
Fox: “It’s becoming a national story about how physical the game is getting. I think you saw good evidence of that today. Every coach in America knows that if you can be more physical, then why (wouldn’t) you be? So, as coaches, we’re teaching that. We’re guilty of doing that. But I’m going to stay guilty of that until they make the other team change, too.”
Fair enough. When you start the season 2-7, you’ll take being 12-11 any way you can get it. Credit Fox and his Bulldogs for sticking with something that didn’t appear to be working. Credit them for grinding away until something actually clicked.
Back in December, you’d have bet a lot of money that a game in which Caldwell-Pope didn’t make a basket would yield a 25-point loss. He’s the only Bulldog who averages in double figures, and if you total the averages of Georgia’s second, third and fourth leading scorers you’d barely top KCP’s by himself. But against A&M he contented himself with defending Turner, which was rather remarkable. How many other big-time scorers would take only three shots?
Said Caldwell-Pope: “It wasn’t really tempting (to shoot more).”
Then, speaking of his duel with Turner: “It was kind of nerve-racking. But it was great fun, great competition. We kind of eliminated each other from scoring.”
And Caldwell-Pope’s team won, which is kind of the idea. After 23 games, we’ve seen enough of Georgia to know that they’ll never be mistaken for the Loyola Marymount of Paul Westhead, but Fox has sold his men on playing to what strengths they possess. Shooting is a skill, and these Bulldogs aren’t a skilled bunch. But defending entails mostly hard work, and that’s a price they’ve been willing to pay.
“Our defense has given us a chance most nights,” Fox said. “And the younger players, whom I criticized early in the season, have gotten better (on defense).”
In a season when scoring is hard for everybody – mighty Kansas managed 13 points in the first half against nondescript TCU on Wednesday – being good at guarding has already enabled Georgia to clamber into a tie for fifth place in a 14-team league. If the Bulldogs can endeavor to make a few more shots, who knows where they might alight?
Previous Posts
- When, if ever, will Georgia Tech again beat UGA?February 7, 2013
- Tech's Paul Johnson: Forget the rankings, OK? February 6, 2013
- Georgia Tech: Better at playing than recruitingFebruary 5, 2013
