Georgia’s basketball season is not over after all.
The Bulldogs received a bid to the National Invitational Tournament and will host Xavier on Tuesday night at Stegeman Coliseum.
Tip-off at Stegeman Coliseum set for 7 p.m.
“It gives the opportunity for more opportunity, right?” head coach Mike White said during a Sunday night Zoom session. “It’s good for experience, whether it’s our fifth-year guys, our freshmen, or anyone in between. They’ve earned the right to play in postseason and nobody can take that away from them. It’s not the NCAA Tournament, but the NIT is a prestigious tournament that we’re proud to be a part of.”
Should Georgia win, Georgia will play the winner of Wake Forest and Appalachian State.
With the possible exception Jabri Abdur-Rahim, the Bulldogs are expected to be at full strength when they play the Big East Conference's Musketeers (16-17).
That apparently includes the possibility of any opt-outs.
“This group of guys, we enjoy playing with each other,” Thomasson said. “I know for me that (opting out) would be disrespectful to the fans and to this program for me not to play in this game. It’s something I want to do, to keep playing with Georgia on front of this jersey. I don’t think anybody on this team will opt out. In fact, I think everybody is going to play. I’m 99.9 percent sure everybody is going to play.”
Georgia (17-16) was awarded the spot after a new thanks to changes implemented by the NIT Board of Managers before the start of the year.
The changes guarantee two teams from each Power Conference will be included in the field based on their standing in the NET rankings. It states the top two teams in the NET rankings not qualifying for the NCAA Tournament, regardless of win-loss record, will be selected.
After the nine SEC teams qualified for the NCAAs, that left Ole Miss (90), LSU (84) and Georgia (100) as the next three remaining teams.
But with Ole Miss deciding not to take part in postseason play despite its record of 20-12, that opened the door for the Bulldogs, who fell to Florida in Thursday’s second round of the SECs.
White makes no apologies for his team receiving a bid.
“We feel like we got better. We had a similar record, but our league was better, and our numbers were better,” White said. “Again, no one can take away the fact that we made the NIT, we made the postseason. It’s not the ultimate goal, but it’s a step in the right direction. We got better. From Year 1 to Year 2, we got to the NIT.”
