Mark Fox had many reasons to be concerned about Tuesday night’s SEC matchup against Vanderbilt.
One, was the fact the Commodores came into the contest as the top three-point shooting team in the league. Second, how would his team perform after Saturday's tough overtime loss to Florida?
He shouldn’t have been worried about either.
The Bulldogs started the game quickly and the Commodores’ vaunted three-point attack never was truly a factor as Georgia eased to a 76-68 win before a Stegeman Coliseum crowd of 7,480.
“I’ll be honest with you, we were concerned as a coaching staff with our energy level. We did not have a lot of juice in our shoot-around today,” Fox said. “Nine-o-clock games are hard anyway, so we were a little concerned, but I thought our crowd gave us a good boost in the first half.”
It no doubt liked what they saw.
Not only did the Commodores finish a mere 10-of-31 on their three-point attempts, but the Bulldogs (12-6, 4-2) committed a season-low six turnovers and were whistled for only 13 fouls after getting called for 27 against the Gators.
As a result, Vanderbilt (8-10, 2-4) only went to the line six times, converting four of their free throw attempts.
“We had 16 assists but I’m most pleased with the six turnovers,” Fox said. “Obviously, the ratio is great, but I thought we did a nice job taking care of the ball.”
Yante Maten did a good job staying on the court.
After fouling out with just over four minutes to play against Florida, Maten – who led the Bulldogs with 21 points – only committed one against Vanderbilt and that came with just over three minutes left to play.
“It was definitely a conscious effort,” Maten said. “I was trying to make sure I didn’t foul out because that certainly doesn’t help our team so that was a big emphasis.”
Otherwise, Maten had plenty of help.
Juwan Parker tied his career-high with 17 points, followed by J.J. Frazier with 15 and Derek Ogbeide. Luke Kornet topped the Commodores with 19 points, with Riley Lechance adding 13, and Jeff Roberson and Nolan Cressler adding 11 apiece.
Season-leading scorer Matthew Fisher-Davis finished with only nine points for the Commodores after not starting the game due to disciplinary reasons stemming from Vanderbilt’s loss on Saturday to Tennessee.
“I never thought that we caught a good rhythm,” Vanderbilt coach Bryce Drew said. “When you shoot well, obviously, it helps you on the defensive end. I never thought that we got the two, three, four stops in a row that would allow us to ever really get a run and put pressure on them.”
Vandy, which trailed by nine points at the half, only got as close as three in the second half, 42-39, before an 8-2 run by the Bulldogs stretched the margin back to nine points.
The Commodores would get no closer than six points after that.
“When we needed to make a basket, sometimes it was Yante, then it was Juwan and Derek made a couple of big ones,” Fox said. “We had a lot of guys chip in and whenever (Vanderbilt) made a run we were able to answer it, and that’s a good sign of maturity for a team.”
The Bulldogs started quickly, jumping out to a 14-5 lead, getting balanced scoring. But more importantly, they limited the kind of mistakes that have plagued the team at times this year.
Just three days after getting whistled 27 times against the Gators, Georgia committed just six fouls the first half and turned the ball over only five times.
The Bulldogs led by as many as 13, with Maten leading the first-half effort with 10 points, followed by Ogbeide with eight.
NOTES: Maten’s 21 points was his 17th double-digit scoring game this year. … The 25 first-half points allowed by the Bulldogs was the lowest total surrendered at home and third lowest of the year.
