Sometimes you just need to get out of the building with a win.

Georgia looked like it would run away with Wednesday night's home matchup with Rider. But despite a furious late rally from the Broncs (5-6), the Bulldogs (10-3) held on for a hard-earned 78-72 win.

"I was really impressed by how hard they play," Georgia head coach Mike White said after the game. "I thought they were really prepared. I think they’re a good team. They played us hard and as physically as any team we’ve played this year."

Georgia led by as many as 20 in the second half. At the under-8 media timeout, the Bulldogs held a commanding 66-53 lead.

But Rider fought back, using a 9-0 run minutes later to trim the deficit to 70-64.

"They were running this play, I don’t know how to explain it," guard Terry Roberts said. "They were just getting to the rim. They’re just a really aggressive team. They were getting to the rim. If they missed, they were going up and getting the rebound and putting it back."

Offensive rebounds gave Georgia trouble all night.

After one half, Rider held an 8-0 advantage in offensive rebounds and a 12-0 advantage in second-chance points. Georgia improved a bit in the second half, but Rider used that tenacity in the paint to climb back into the game.

"For the most part on the interior, I thought they played a little bit tougher, a little bit tougher, a little bit more physical," White said. "They were certainly the aggressor on the interior."

To make matters worse, Georgia's hot shooting dried up in the second half.

In the first half, the Bulldogs shot 56 percent overall and made 6-of-9 3-pointers. They then followed that up by hitting on their first five shots from behind the arc after the intermission.

But closing out the night, Georgia made just two of its final 11 3-point attempts. The Bulldogs missed 12 of their final 13 shots overall.

"I think we relied on our shotmaking to bail us out," forward Jabri Abdur-Rahim said. "We’re not going to shoot like that every night. When we have those faults in intensity, we’ve just got to be able to do a better job of picking ourselves up. They kind of just overpowered us on some of the plays. That’s the way they were able to get back in the game, I think."

Rider cut the lead to just two in the game's final minutes. But a pair of crucial free throws from forward Braelen Bridges and one defensive stop secured the 78-72 win.

The victory gives Georgia 10 wins before the new year, something that has happened just three previous times in school history. The win is the sixth in seven tries for the Bulldogs.

It didn't come quite as easily as it once appeared. But with conference play around the corner, White is taking the positives and negatives equally in stride.

"We’re a team that’s played really hard, that’s been the aggressor in a lot of games, that’s dominated the glass in a lot of games to this point. We’ve got to do that at a higher level in this league to be competitive in those areas," White said. "The positives, again, are the fact that we’re shooting the ball, executing better, making better decisions with the basketball. Our assists are going up, our turnovers are going down. If we can get back to the way that we rebounded two, three, four weeks ago, combined with some of the other things that we’re doing well, that’s our best version."