NIT semifinal loss difficult to swallow for Bulldogs
Georgia’s semifinal NIT game on Tuesday night at Hinkle Fieldhouse against Seton Hall was never truly in doubt.
The Pirates rolled past the Bulldogs 84-67. But even with the lopsided outcome, Mike White and his players did not take the loss easily.
“It’s disappointing. We were close. We were a game away from competing for a championship,” White said. “It was an emotional locker room. These guys were devastated downstairs. It showed how much they care for one another, it showed how much they intended to play another game.”
The loss ends Georgia’s season at 20-17, while Seton Hall moves on to play Indiana State in Thursday’s Championship game.
“These guys accomplished a lot, getting to the NIT Final Four,” White said. “They wanted to be a part of this tournament. To get to 20 of course, play our best basketball down the stretch, all positives. It was a pleasure to work with these men.”
Georgia converted just one of its first 10 shots to start the contest.
Seton Hall, meanwhile, seemingly could miss.
An 11-0 spurt turned into a 16-1 run for the Pirates, followed later in the half by a 10-0 run, building the lead by as many as 22 points.
Georgia answered with a brief 5-0 run to get within 17, but got no closer, despite Seton Hall going scoreless the final 2:02 of the first half.
“They threw the first punch early,” freshman Silas Demary Jr. said. “Coming out of the first media (timeout), we knew we had to hit that first punch. We kind of did, but we found ourselves trying to dig out of a hole the whole time.”
Demary Jr. led the Bulldogs with 19 points, followed by Thomasson with 10 after not scoring a single point in the first half.
It did not get much better in the second half.
Georgia shot just 38.5 percent from the field, even worse from three-point range.
The Bulldogs made only 5 of 26 shots from beyond the arc.
“The ball would not go in. You haven’t heard me say that all year. Seton Hall has a really good team. It’s not like they gave us anything easy, but the open 3s we had early just didn’t go,” White said. “They had a couple at the rim that didn’t go, and then all of a sudden our body language changed a little bit. We’d been really loose and confident in the past month, but that wasn’t our demeanor in the last 30 minutes of this game.”
Georgia managed to climb to within 11 points at 73-62 with 5:36 left but Seton Hall quickly extended the lead back to 15. The Bulldogs would get no closer than 13 the rest of the way.
“We played just as hard, got some extra stops, got in transition. We even had several 3-on-2, 4-on-2 possessions that we didn’t convert and those can be deflating,” White said. “Hence, 67 points. We just couldn’t get it to go and didn’t do a good enough job.”
