Preview: Georgia at Kentucky - Confidence building for Dawgs

WHERE: Rupp Arena

WHEN: Tuesday, 9 p.m.

RECORDS: Georgia 13-4, 3-1; Kentucky 11-6, 2-2

TV/RADIO: ESPN (Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes, Marty Smith); Georgia Bulldog Radio Network (Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle, Adam Gillespie).

Winning breeds confidence.

For Mike White’s Georgia basketball team, there’s currently a lot of that going around.

It’s easy to see why. The Bulldogs (13-4, 3-1) enter Tuesday night’s game at Kentucky (9 p.m., ESPN) as arguably the surprise team in the SEC after already doubling their win total from a season ago.

“Winning obviously is going to bring confidence,” Bulldog Jusaun Holt said. “We’ve been working hard together and the more we win the more confidence we’re going to gain, not only as a team but players as individuals.”

Per Holt, that’s not all.

Players now believe they can be competitive in the league, a belief that was definitely helped by Saturday's victory at Ole Miss, the team’s first road victory since winning at Auburn, 91-86, on Feb. 2, 2021, a span of 711 days.

“It was really big,” he said. “We hadn’t won a road game in like (forever), so we were like, we’re going to break out of that right now. That’s what we did.”

Although careful not to get too excited about his team’s start, White acknowledged he’s seeing a different team than he did since the season began.

“We definitely have more confidence in our ability to be competitive at this level in these games, and potentially have a chance down the stretch,” White said. “Fortunately, we’ve won some close ones, and if we hadn’t, had come up a little bit short in a couple of those major matchups early on, we might be looking at the season a lot differently.”

After opening their SEC schedule with a 76-64 win over Auburn, the Bulldogs dropped a close one at Florida (82-75) before back-to-back victories over Mississippi State (58-50) and Ole Miss (62-58) in Oxford.

After Tuesday night’s game in Lexington, Georgia returns home Saturday to Stegeman Coliseum where it will play two of the next three games.

“Every game means something because you don’t want to lose in the conference at all,” Kario Oquendo said. “Every game, we’re looking forward to the next game to see if we can get it. You go into every game thinking you can win. We just want to win as many as we can.”

White cited his team’s resilience as being one of the most aspects he’s seen improve as it pertains to the play of his team.

Even when his Bulldogs have fallen behind, there has been no quit and the team is playing hard to the final buzzer.

“Some of those close wins, the resilience, the mental toughness has increased, which gives our guys a better chance. That said, we’ve won close ones. But winning at Kentucky is a whole different deal. They’re coming off, arguably, the best win this season in college basketball at Tennessee, which has a chance to win the whole thing,” White said. “This is a Kentucky team coming off a big-time performance, especially defensively. Every point is going to be very difficult to come by. But, if we play really, really, well, who knows? I think our guys feel like we’ll have a chance to be competitive, whereas a couple of months ago, I’m not sure that would have been the collective thought.”

Preview News and Notes

• UGA is off to its first 3-1 start in SEC play since 2016-17 and looking to go 4-1 for the first time since 2013-14.

• Terry Roberts is the SEC’s leading scorer in conference action, averaging 20.3 ppg in a quartet of league dates.

• Against Miss. State, Braelen Bridges notched his 1000th point and 500th rebound in the 100th game of his D-I career.

• UGA’s assist-to-TO ratio is up by +.23 since Thanksgiving, the best improvement by an SEC team during that span.

• Mike White secured the 250th victory of his head coaching career with UGA’s win over Florida A&M on Dec. 2.

Kentucky improved to 11-6 overall and 2-3 in SEC play with the Wildcats’ 63-56 upset at No. 5 Tennessee last Saturday.

Preseason SEC Player of the Year Oscar Tshiebwe is averaging a double-double of 15.9 points and 13.1 rebounds per game. He leads a quartet of Cats scoring at a double-figure clip. In addition, Antonio Reeves is contributing 12.2 ppg, Cason Wallace is chipping in 10.9 ppg and Jacob Toppin is adding 10.6 ppg.

Former Bulldog Sahvir Wheeler, who missed the Tennessee contest with an injury, leads Kentucky and the SEC in assists, delivering 6.3 apg, and also scores 9.5 ppg.

On what is different about how Kentucky has been playing recently:
"Not that I’ve watched every game, I just feel like it was a big opportunity for those guys. They played incredibly hard. Tennessee plays incredibly hard too. It was a fistfight. They just seemed very detailed defensively and matched Tennessee’s physicality. It was an incredibly physical game. They’re very good. We’ve all had losses. Every team throughout college basketball has had games where we didn’t play quite as sharp or didn’t play with the same edge. Man, they were on point the other day. They’re coming off a big-time performance.”

On playing on the road and winning on the road in Oxford: “Again, we’ve got a resilient group. We had a lot of ugly offensive possessions. We had some possessions that lacked in detail, and some poor offensive execution. We had some, especially in the first half, some poor shot selection. To keep grinding and to find a way to win it an ugly one like that, especially on the road, can only give you confidence. Winning – or I should say being competitive in the first place – puts you in a position at Kentucky or at one of the harder places to play in our league that’s the next step. That will be more difficult. We’re going to have to play a lot better tomorrow night to have a chance.”

On what the team has to do specifically to be competitive with Kentucky: "Specifically, they’re really good in transition offense. Oscar (Tshiebwe) is one of the best rim-running bigs we’ve evaluated and scouted against in a long time. Sahvir (Wheeler), his speed downhill in space, film doesn’t do it justice. I’ve seen it live and have tried to explain that to some of our guys who haven’t competed against him. They’ve got wings that they can pitch ahead to that are skilled and can make plays in space, and they’ve got shooters.

Our transition defense is very important, leveling them and being able to set our man-to-man. The defensive glass is enormous for us, which starts and ends with Oscar (Tshiebwe). They’re coming off, again, one of the better defensive performances of this season throughout college basketball to defend the way they did on the road at Tennessee. Every point is going to be very difficult to come by, and we have to find a way to manufacture some baskets and get to the foul line and convert.”