Georgia at No. 1 Auburn
WHERE: Neville Arena, Auburn, Ala.
WHEN: Saturday, 4 p.m. ET
RECORDS: Georgia 16-10, 4-9; Auburn 24-2, 12-1
TV/RADIO: ESPN (Tom Hart, Dane Bradshaw); Georgia Bulldog Radio Network (Scott Howard, Chuck Dowdle, Adam Gillespie)
The Game
After being on the cusp of a spot in the NCAA Tournament, Georgia’s basketball team faces a major uphill climb with just five games to go in the regular season.
Talk about a daunting task.
Of those five contests, the next two will be against the nation’s No. 1 and No. 2 teams in consecutive games, beginning with Saturday’s contest at top-ranked Auburn. Georgia will host No. 2 Florida on Tuesday night at Stegeman Coliseum.
Considering the team’s recent struggles, including dropping three straight games, this is not exactly an enviable position for the Bulldogs.
“I don't think that we've had the experience that we're going to experience this week,” head coach Mike White said. “But we've got a great opportunity in front of us and we're excited about competing.”
It will be quite the task.
Georgia played the Tigers tough in Athens, falling 70-68 a month ago. But in that game, Auburn played without preseason SEC Player of the Year Johni Broome. Broome is back, and the Tigers are playing like a team that could contend for the national title.
“We're just going to have to limit his touches. He’s very dominant, ball-dominant, and very strong,” Bulldog freshman Asa Newell said. “We're just going to have to know our matchups and try to limit touches to him as possible.”
The Bulldogs have other concerns, namely a conference-long issue of poor second-half play.
In their 13 SEC games, the Bulldogs have led at the half in eight of them. Their record is 3-5, including their most recent game with Missouri. The Bulldogs lead the visiting Tigers by three before losing 87-74.
Putting a finger on exactly why that’s been happening has been a major point of consternation for White and his players alike.
After the loss to Missouri, Newell and RJ Godfrey talked about the lack of focus and the need to play harder. Those two factors have seemingly been a common denominator in each of the team’s five second-half efforts, resulting in five of their nine conference defeats.
White said he and his staff used the extra time with no mid-week game to try and address the issues.
"The early second-half struggles have given us the opportunity as a staff to collaborate and brainstorm and change some things up. We've got six or seven things we'll do a little bit differently tomorrow in terms of film, conversation, offense, defense, the timing of how we're utilizing those halftime minutes, potentially changing up the lineup, changing up a little bit more drastically our approach early second half schematically,” White said. “Then from a practice standpoint, what we've started doing, I've never done it before. In literally four practices this week, we had a halftime in the middle of practice hoping that we could get off to better second-half starts.”
Scouting Auburn
Auburn improved to 24-2 overall and 12-1 in the SEC with a 67-60 victory over Arkansas on Wednesday night. For the sixth consecutive week, the Tigers are the No. 1-ranked team in the nation.
Broome, a leading candidate for National Player of the Year accolades, leads Auburn in scoring (18.0 points per game), rebounding (11.0 rebounds per game), assists (3.4 assists per game), blocks (2.6 blocks per game), and playing time (28.7 minutes per game).
All told, six Tigers are scoring at a double-digit clip. Trailing Broome are Chad Baker-Mazara at 12.4 ppg, Tahaad Pettiford at 11.3 ppg, Miles Kelly at 10.8 ppg, Denver Jones at 10.7 ppg and Chaney Johnson at 10.5 ppg.
This and That
• The Tigers represent Georgia’s 13th ranked opponent, sixth Top-10 foe, and fifth road game versus top-10 competition this season. All of those numbers represent the most of any team in the nation.
• With Saturday’s date against No. 1/1 Auburn, the Bulldogs will have played exactly half of their games during the 2025 calendar – seven of 14 – versus Top-10 teams with a date next Tuesday versus No. 2/2 Florida that will tip the scales to the top-10’s favor.
• Asa Newell has been named SEC Freshman of the Week four times this season – on Nov. 18, Dec. 9, Jan. 13, and Feb. 10. That matches Anthony Edwards for the most SEC FOTW recognitions for a Georgia Bulldog.
• Over the Bulldogs’ last three games, Silas Demary Jr. has averaged 19.3 ppg and 5.0 assists per game. He has played all but 18 seconds of UGA’s last two games against No. 8/9 Texas A&M and No. 21/22 Missouri.
