An old saying goes, “Don’t put the cart in front of the horse.”
Georgia’s basketball team is taking that approach to this week’s SEC Tournament ahead of its expected bid to the NCAA Tournament.
The Bulldogs will learn their destination on Sunday when the 68-team field is announced. But Mike White and his squad are squarely focused on their next game against Oklahoma in the first round of the SEC Tournament.
Tip-off is set for Wednesday night at approximately 9:30 at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville and will be televised on the SEC Network.
“We’ve got momentum,” head coach Mike White said after Saturday’s win over Vanderbilt. “A couple of our guys weren't quite as sharp as we've been on that last road trip, but other guys stepped up. So, hopefully, you can put it all together right where you've got all five guards that you play all play well at one time. All of your frontcourt guys play well at one time, and that's your ceiling; that's maximizing potential. It’s hard to do but needed this time of year if we're going to make some noise the rest of this month, so that's where we'll focus as we get back to work.”
After taking Sunday off, the Bulldogs are back in the gym today, focused solely on the Sooners, who Georgia defeated 72-62 in Athens on Jan. 11.
If the Bulldogs win, they will face Kentucky in the second round on Thursday night. Georgia enters the tournament winners of four straight games, the most of any team in the conference. Saturday’s victory over the Commodores gave the Bulldogs just their sixth 20-win season in the program's 118-year history.
The late-season run is even more impressive considering the Bulldogs dropped nine of 11 games playing one of the toughest schedules in the country.
But after using the bye week before Auburn to make some on-court adjustments with personnel and scheme, the Bulldogs have looked and played like a different team.
“We came to Georgia and thought that we'd have an opportunity to build something of our own, to rebuild. Excited about the potential of what this is and what it's been at times. We just want to put our head down and get to work and get better,” White said. “We take it one game at a time, and we’ve recruited high-level players. Now we’re in the mix to potentially play in the postseason and play in the NCAA Tournament because that’s what this job should be.”
Georgia enters Wednesday’s game knowing they’re safely in the 68-team field.
The Bulldogs sit at No. 30 in the updated NCAA rankings, which the NCAA selection committee uses to select its at-large team.
Georgia was also the unanimous pick of noted bracketologists Joe Lunardi of ESPN and Jerry Palm of CBS to make the field.
Lunardo predicts the Bulldogs will head to Cleveland as part of the East Region and matchup against Louisville. He predicts Tennessee and Central Connecticut to make up the other side of the bracket.
Palm has Georgia headed to Wichita as part of the Midwest Regional and matched up against UCLA. Houston and Bryant University are the teams Palm has on the other side of Georgia’s bracket. Lunardi has Georgia as a 10th seed, and Palm has the Bulldogs as a No. 9.
“We’ve got double-digit losses, but against some really good teams. And we've got some high-level wins. We’ve had multiple good wins,” White said. “But we're still going to be process driven. Let’s play better in Nashville. I don’t know how we’ll play but that’s going to be our mindset.”
