Jacksonville at Georgia

WHERE: Stegeman Coliseum

WHEN: Friday, 7 p.m.

RECORDS: Georgia 2-0, Jacksonville 3-0

SERIES HISTORY: Georgia leads 9-0

LAST MEETING: Georgia 68, Jacksonville 62 on Nov. 9, 2012.

TV/RADIO: SEC Network (Tom Hart, Daymeon Fishback); Georgia Bulldog Radio Network (Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle, Adam Gillespie)

Two games in one week; three games in one week. With so much uncertainty surrounding this season’s schedule due to the ongoing Covid pandemic, Georgia basketball coach Tom Crean knows he will have to be prepared for the unexpected.

Three games into the season, and Friday night’s game against Jacksonville will mark the first time the Bulldogs (2-0) will have played a team on their current non-conference schedule.

“I think to us, it’s not optimal, but for this year, it’s very probable,” Crean said of the season-long uncertainty. “I told the guys too, we may get to a situation where we have three games in three weeks, let alone three games in one week. Who knows what way this season is going to go? All you can do is be ready.”

Originally, the Bulldogs were not supposed to play Wednesday night’s game against Division II North Georgia. But after Columbus State was forced to cancel last week’s opener due to positive Covid tests, Crean was forced to find a quick stand-in and the nearby Nighthawk were able to oblige.

As expected, Georgia cruised to an easy 84-62 win. While the victory was nice, Crean said the biggest aspect of Wednesday’s contest was the simple fact his Bulldogs got to play a game.

“We wanted to get another game, we wanted to make sure we had another game because it’s so important to play against somebody else,” Crean said. “It was not optimal, but like I said, it’s probably going to be probably down the road.”

Although it has been eight years since the two teams met, Crean is familiar with JU head coach Tony Jasic, who previously served as the head coach at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne.

“They’ve done a really good job there. They have guys that can make shots, they have some matchup problems with guards that can post up, with a point guard that is a really good deliverer and looking for people, and they have a couple of shooters that fire it whenever they catch it,” Crean said. “We have to be really on top of that. We’ll measure where we’re at and get a good mix of mental and physical and understand that the most important thing is to be as fresh as we can be Friday night at seven.”

Two games into the season and sophomore Jaykwon Walton is looking for a new home after placing his name in the NCAA transfer portal Thursday.

“We will miss Jaykwon,” Crean said in a statement to UGASports. “He made a decision to pursue his goals somewhere else, and we wish Jaykwon and his family nothing but the best.”

A 6-foot-7, 205-pound native of Columbus, was the nation’s 87th-ranked player his senior year at George W. Carver High in Montgomery. Walton signed with the Bulldogs after initially being committed to Mississippi State.

Hampered by illness and injuries, Walton played in just seven games last season, averaging 1.3 points and 1.5 rebounds in just 5.4 minutes per contests. Walton played in both of Georgia’s game thus far this season, seeing a career-best 7.38 minutes with three rebounds and two points in Wednesday night’s win over North Georgia.

The Dolphins arrive in Athens with a 3-0 record on the season, with home victories over Coastal Georgia, Southern Miss, and Presbyterian.

Four Jacksonville players are averaging double digits – Dontarius James at 17.7 ppg, Tyreese Davis and Diante Wood both at 14.3 ppg and Bryce Workman at 10.7 ppg.

The Dolphins are shooting an eye-catching 46.2 percent from 3-point range, connecting on 30-of-65 attempts from behind the arc. James, Wood and Trey Sides are doing most of that damage. They account for 83.3 percent of Jacksonville’s made 3-pointers while shooting a sizzling 58.1 percent (25-of-43) from 22-feet and 1 3/4-inches and beyond.

The Jacksonville roster is comprised of eight returnees and seven newcomers.

Wood is the leading returning scorer from a year ago when he averaged 6.6 ppg, while Mo Arnold, Sides and Workman all drew starting nods at some point during the 2019-20 campaign. Davis, who was an Atlantic Sun All-Freshman honoree in 2018-19, also returns after sitting out last season with a knee injury.

• Sahvir Wheeler is the first UGA player to record back-to-back double-digit assist tallies since at least 1979...we are still going back searching for another instance.

It is unclear when the last time a Bulldog recorded double-digit assists in consecutive games, according to Georgia’s sports information office. As of lunchtime Thursday, research to the 1979-80 campaign – Hugh Durham’s first in Athens – found no such occurrence.

A couple of close calls include Donald Hartry doing so in a four-game span in 1986-87, Rashad Wright over a five-game stretch over the end of the 2001-02 and start of the 2002-03 seasons and G.G. Smith over a six-game time frame during the 1998-99 campaign.

• Wheeler’s 12 assists against FAMU equaled the fourth-best single-game assist tally in 116 seasons of Georgia Basketball. It also was the most by a Bulldog in more than two decades...since G.G. Smith also had a dozen assists against Vanderbilt on Jan. 3, 1999.

• Grad transfer Andrew Garcia is 185 points shy of 1,000 for his career.