What was once thought improbable is now probable.
With Saturday’s 79-68 win over Vanderbilt, the Bulldog appear headed back to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015.
"We just wanted to trust the process, and that's what we did. Non-conference and conference, we just stayed the course, grinded every single day, and the process took care of itself," freshman Asa Newell said. "It's just an amazing feeling that all the hard work, we still got a lot of hard work, but we're gonna be dancing."
For head coach Mike White, Saturday's victory was another step in what he calls "the process."
"I know y'all want more than that; I'm sorry, that's what we're at. But we'll have a day off tomorrow, and on Monday, we'll have a great practice. These guys have embraced that; they've bought into it. They continue to just get better because we're not focused on that big picture. This is all I'll say about it," White said. "I would assume we're in (the NCAAs), I mean, we're good. We're good; our whole league is good. There's gonna be a bunch of teams in our league that make it and then do damage against the tournament. But we're focused right now on having a great practice again on Monday, prepping to play well, and continuing to ride this momentum."
What a season comeback it’s been.
The Bulldogs (20-11, 8-10 in the SEC) were left for dead in the postseason waters after a pair of four-game losing streaks, going 2-9 form Jan. 15 through Feb. 22. But after four straight wins over Florida, Texas, South Carolina, and Vanderbilt, they appear on the brink of accomplishing a feat few saw possible as recently as two weeks ago.
It marks just the sixth time in 118 years of Bulldog basketball that Georgia won 20 regular-season games before the start of postseason play.
Georgia's four-game winning streak will be the longest of any SEC team entering next week's conference tournament at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville. The Bulldogs will be no worse than an 11th seed.
"The narrative was, what's wrong with Georgia? The wheels are falling off: are you kidding me? We lost to some really, really good teams. We played more top teams than any team in college basketball played. Again, it's the best league in the history of college basketball," White said. "I think going into this game, if I'm not mistaken, our worst loss was to a NET 39 team. I mean, we didn't even have an average loss, let alone a bad loss. We've taken care of business."
Against Vanderbilt, the Bulldogs certainly did.
Up by just a single point, back-to-back three-pointers by Dylan James and Silas Demary Jr. put Georgia up 51-44, forcing a timeout by the Commodores (20-11, 8-10) with 16:01 left.
The Bulldogs would extend their lead to 10 with 13:12 to play, but the Commodores would respond. Vanderbilt cut the lead to two before Dakota Leffew drained a three-pointer to push the lead to 61-56 with 8:05 left.
Georgia was just getting started.
From there, the Bulldogs went on an incredible 15-0 run, with Leffew scoring 10 of the points to put Georgia up 73-56 with just 3:47 to play. The Bulldogs would cruise from there.
"He's one of those guys that every time he shoots at a game, whether you're up 10, down 10, early game, late game, he looks the same, his body language looks the same. He's just very consistent," White said of Leffew. "Tyron's (Lawrence) got a lot of that as well. They've got a lot of similarities. But Dakota certainly did some big shots for us today."
Newell and Demary Jr. led the Bulldogs with 15 points each, followed by Leffew with 14.
The first half was back and forth.
Georgia and Vanderbilt traded the lead 11 times over the first 20 minutes before a foul on Newell allowed the freshman to tie the game at 39 on a pair of free throws with 0.5 seconds left before halftime.
"I think we just started the game ... I might say this wrong, but lackadaisical," Tyrin Lawrence said of the Bulldogs, who committed nine first-half turnovers. "But Coach talked to us at halftime, just told us to be focused, but to maybe take care of a lot of that. So that's what we learned in the second half."
Newell, who finished with eight first-half points, might have had more but picked up two quick fouls in the first two minutes and did not return until just over 10 minutes on the clock.
Fortunately for Georgia, Lawrence was there to pick up the scoring slack.
The graduate scored nine first-half points, including a key three-pointer for the Bulldogs, who converted 4 of their first 8 three-point attempts.
