WHERE: Auburn Arena
WHEN: Saturday, noon
RECORDS: Georgia 10-4, 0-2; Auburn 14-0; 2-0
TV/RADIO: ESPNews: (Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes); Georgia Bulldog Radio Network (Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle, Tony Schiavone); XM/Internet (380/970).
If playing No. 5 Auburn on the road wasn’t a tough enough challenge for Tom Crean and the Georgia basketball team, Mother Nature also decided to get involved.
Severe storms with possible tornadoes are expected to rip across the deep South Saturday afternoon. Auburn officials felt these offered plenty of reason to move the game up to noon (ET) from his scheduled 6 p.m. start.
While the change will alter Georgia’s typical road prep, Crean said he understands why the change was made.
“We'll try to do things a little bit earlier at the hotel tonight. It certainly cuts into your day-of-the-game walk-through. We weren't going to be able to use their arena tonight anyways, because I believe they have a gymnastics meet,” Crean said. “We [had] planned to practice here anyway, so I'll just condense everything down a little bit, and do the best we can with it. We had that we had an inkling last night that there was a potential this could happen. It wasn't like it caught us by surprise. The SEC, Auburn, and Bruce Pearl actually with me, have kept in touch, so we're able to adjust andthat will keep everything as scheduled as we can.”
The game against the unbeaten Tigers (14-0, 2-0) is the latest of what’s been a killer start to the new year.
Georgia (10-4, 0-1) got off to a good start by upending previously No. 9-ranked Memphis at FedEx Forum, followed by Tuesday’s 78-69 loss to Kentucky. After Auburn, Georgia hosts Tennessee Wednesday night.
However, Crean said he hasn’t gotten caught up in the grind.
“I never really looked at it like that. You see the schedule come out and you see those games, but you can't think like that,” Crean said. “I caught myself doing that the other day. If you start thinking like that it messes with you. You’ve really got to look at it each day, you know one game at a time for this whole deal.”
With 10 newcomers on Georgia’s roster, there are only four current Bulldogs who know how tough playing at Auburn Arena can be.
“It is like a jungle going into Auburn, especially with the team they had last year,” senior Jordan Harris said. “They definitely have an intense crowd and very passionate fans. I think we should be ready. I already told the freshmen it is going to be like something they have never seen before.”
However, when it comes to life on the road, this young Bulldog team does have some experience that Crean hopes it can rely on.
The Bulldogs have played two road games, losing 79-59 at Arizona State before last week’s win at Memphis.
“[At Arizona State] we learned a lot from that—we didn’t play very well.This will be a fantastic atmosphere, and he's done an incredible job with the atmosphere there. Their atmosphere last year was as good as any we were in,” Crean said. “It's a matter of just coming out and getting under control. I tell the team, ‘Who wakes up first, lot of times it's going to have an edge in those early morning games, and we've got to do a really good job of coming out there prepared, ready to go, a lot of energy, and not give them a lot of live ball turnovers.”
NOTES: Crean hopes junior forward Rayshaun Hammonds is over the migraine that hampered his play in Tuesday’s loss to Kentucky. “There’s no question that set him back. He didn’t practice but about 10 minutes on Monday, so there’s no question that set us back, and it set him back a little bit,” Crean said. “He’s a rhythm guy, and he needs that rhythm. We'll pick and choose places where I want to get him out of practice at times, to get him some rest.” Hammonds played 24 minutes but was only 2 of 7 from the field, scoring nine points. “When you miss a day like that because you’re dealing with something like that, it’s hard. It's hard for him because he doesn't feel as good, and it's hard to bounce back from that. There's a rhythm that goes into this, especially when it’s such a short preparation like that. On Sunday, we'd done so little when it came to physical and things of that nature. [The migraine] knocked him off his rhythm, no question." …For Auburn, Samir Doughty leads a balanced offensive attack for the Tigers at 15.6 ppg. Isaac Okoro, J’Von McCormick and Austin Wiley also offer double-digit contributions on the scoring front, while Danjel Purifoy is just three points shy of being a fifth.
