Considering all that’s gone wrong for Georgia over the past two weeks, it certainly would have been no surprise to see Jarrett Allen’s short jumper at the buzzer go in to send Saturday’s SEC/Big 12 Challenge contest against Texas into overtime.

But for once, the basketball gods had other ideas as Allen’s shot rolled in then back out, preserving the Bulldogs’ 59-57 win before a Stegeman Coliseum crowd of 10,029.

“Thank God … that’s all I had in my head,” junior Yante Maten said. “Thank God.”

Indeed.

After last week’s clock debacle at Texas A&M and Wednesday’s 20-point loss to Alabama, the Bulldogs (13-8) needed a good win in the worst way with Kentucky, South Carolina and Florida next up on the schedule.

Head coach Mark Fox agreed.

“It really is a good win and we needed one,” said Fox, whose Bulldogs had dropped three of their previous four games.

Maten led the Bulldogs with 21 points, followed by J.J. Frazier with 14, 11 coming in the second half after the senior started 0-for-5 from the field.

As a result, Texas (8-13) charged out to a 32-23 halftime lead before Georgia's Frazier and Maten combined for the Bulldogs’ first 10 points of the second half.

“I didn’t think that either one (Frazier or Maten) played particularly well in the first half, but they had a very good leadership stance at the half,” Fox said. “I felt like they had a good spirit that would lead our team, and they followed through and made the plays that got us going.”

Frazier dismissed the notion that the Bulldogs’ slow start had anything to do with the team’s 80-60 loss to Alabama three days ago.

“It wasn’t that. Our defense was pretty stiff,” Frazier said. “I just felt we weren’t in the right rhythm offensively. They changed defense and just got us out of rhythm. The Alabama game had nothing to do with that.”

Georgia took its first lead of the second half at 38-36 before extending its margin to 50-44 with 6:09 to play on a layup by Juwan Parker.

The Bulldogs never trailed after that, although the game did get a bit dicey after a review by the officials with just over eight seconds left wiped out a basket by Derek Ogbeide, who was ruled not to have gotten his shot off in time.

That gave Texas one more shot to win, and the Longhorns worked the ball down perfectly, getting the ball to Allen – their leading scorer – only to have his ball roll out allowing the Bulldogs’ to hold onto the win.

“If we can have Jared take a shot like that, we’ll take it any day of the week,” Texas coach Shaka Smart said. “Our guys did a good job getting the ball to him. He just didn’t make it, but he’s a really good player and he’s going to make plenty of those shots.”

Allen finished the game with just four points, which tied a season low.

Andrew Jones led the Longhorns with 16 points, followed by Eric Davis with 11 and Kerwin Roach Jr. with 10.

NOTES: Turtle Jackson started the game in place of Jordan Harris who Fox said was still feeling the effects of a recent illness. “Jordan had hit the wall a little bit and he didn’t play as good the last couple of game after spending a couple of days at the health center with an illness,” Fox said. “He didn’t make it back until the start of practice the other day so it just made sense to move Turtle in there.” … Maten now has 20 double-digit scoring games this year, 56 for his career. … Frazier now has 14 double-digit scoring games this season and 63 in his career.