Florida at Georgia

WHERE: Stegeman Coliseum

WHEN: Tuesday, 7 p.m.

RECORDS: Georgia 12-8, 3-5; Florida 15-6, 6-2

TV/RADIO: SEC Network (Tom Hart, John Sunvold); Georgia Bulldogs Radio Network (Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle, Tony Schiavone).

You can probably ask any hardcore Georgia basketball fan about their confidence in the current state of the Bulldog program and get the same frustrated response.

It’s a been a brutal stretch for the Bulldogs, who between poor shooting and blown leads, come into Tuesday night’s game against No. 23 Florida having dropped five of their past six games.

For a team that started 9-2 and set itself up nicely for a spot in the NCAAs, the Bulldogs (12-8, 3-5) tip off the second half of their conference slate with an uncertain future, not only as far as the season is concerned, but also as it pertains to nine-year head coach Mark Fox.

Fans aren’t the only ones frustrated. According to Fox, his players are too.

“I think there’s no question their confidence has been shaken a little bit. Anytime you have a loss or two together that can happen, and we’ve got to fight to get that back,” Fox said. “But there’s no question their confidence has taken a little bit of a hit.”

Players spoken to Monday toed the company line.

Freshman Nicolas Claxton said there was still plenty of “good vibes” in the locker room, as did senior Juwan Parker, who added the team “still believes in itself.”

But even Parker couldn’t deny the obvious – Georgia’s penchant for its disappearing offense resulting in a series of blown leads is starting to wear on the Bulldogs’ collective mind.

“We were doing a better job of closing games,” said Parker, when asked what the team was doing differently at 9-2. “We need to focus on playing all 40 minutes.”

That certainly hasn’t been the case.

Georgia – which ranks last in the SEC in scoring at 69.3 points per game – blew a 14-point halftime advantage at Auburn, lost to Arkansas in double-overtime after blowing a 16-point lead, and in Saturday’s 56-51 loss at Kansas State, was outscored 12-2 over the final six minutes to end the game.

“In every game, I think an early lead, whether you have it or you’re behind, most early leads in basketball don’t last,” Fox said. “You really have to look at how you play and the other night we didn’t finish a couple of plays. We missed a couple of shots in the basket, we didn’t throw the ball to Yante when we should have, which therefore missed a great opportunity at the goal and then we had a critical turnover late. The combination of those things made the difference, but we’ve got to get some consistent performance. We have a couple of guys the last four or five games who have not shot it as well. We’ve just got to get back to putting the ball in the basket; it’s as simple as it sounds.”

So, what changes might be in store? According to Fox, it’s just a matter of executing his current plan.

“I don’t think we’ll change how we’ll play. I think as we go back and look at it, we probably wouldn’t have done a lot different. We probably should have thrown the ball to a different spot two or three times, and we needed to finish some plays. If we do that, the result is different. We just didn’t finish that game like we should.”

The Bulldogs need to figure something out quick. Their schedule doesn’t get any easier.

Georgia follows up Tuesday’s game against the Gators (15-6, 6-2) with back-to-back road contests at Mississippi State and Vanderbilt. The rest of the Bulldogs' schedule includes games against Auburn (home), Florida (road), Tennessee (home), South Carolina (road), LSU (home) and Texas A&M (home) before the SEC Tournament set for St. Louis in March 7-11.