As Georgia continues to slog through the SEC portion of its basketball schedule, predicting where the Bulldogs’ first league victory might come seems a difficult task.
Following Saturday’s 83-66 loss at South Carolina, one begins to wonder if such a win will come.
When the opposing team goes on a 24-0 run, it does not bode well for the future. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs (5-14, 0-6), that’s exactly what happened on Saturday, resulting in an eighth straight defeat for a program whose season continues to go downhill.
“We lost our belief a little bit. That’s unacceptable,” head coach Tom Crean said. “I mean, we’re young people and life is hard. We’ve lost some basketball games. But you’ve got to turn it around and believe you can win.”
Currently, there’s little reason to believe that the Bulldogs can.
Georgia has had some tough losses thus far, but Saturday’s may have been the ugliest of all, especially when you consider the Gamecocks (11-7) came in a pedestrian 1-4 in conference play.
“They’re young, their confidence is not that great right now, because they haven’t had to the win to get them over the hump.” Crean said. “But we’re not going to get the win if we start seeing ghosts every time we see something go wrong.”
What happened over the final 10:39 of the game almost defies description.
The Bulldogs – who led for much of the game – found themselves up 60-53 following a pair of free throws by Christian Wright.
After that, disaster.
Over the next seven minutes, South Carolina went on a 24-0 run, which did not come to end until Braelen Bridge finally hit a layup with 3:39 to play.
“Because we’re missing some plays, we let our head get down and on the other end we’re a step late on a shooter or a step slow, and then our hand doesn’t get up, and the basket starts looking like Lake Michigan to them,” Crean said. “It’s a game of runs and a game of momentum. We had numerous instances to just come down, bear down and get a stop. That’s what it was as much as anything else.”
A failure to try and get the ball inside against the Gamecocks’ second-half zone did not do Georgia any favors, either.
The first half saw Georgia enjoy considerable success in the post, resulting in a 22 trips to the free throw line with the Bulldogs converting 21.
However, when South Carolina went zone, it all fell apart.
“We had a lack of leadership on the floor in the last six, six and half minutes. The game’s not that complicated. Throw the ball inside,” Crean said. “We were doing it all night. We shot 22 free throws in the first half. When running action, especially against zone, you want to play through the middle of the zone, whether it’s a deep post up or whether it’s an elbow catch.”
The loss dropped Georgia to 14-46 in SEC games under Crean.
"They lead the league in fouls. We had 22 free throws in the first half, that’s what the game was giving us,” Crean said. “I’m calling those actions and that’s the way we have to play, especially when they go zone. It becomes more random. Get the ball in the middle, and that’s what ticks me off because it wasn’t that hard.”
Bridges led the Bulldogs with 20 points, followed by Noah Baumann with 14 and Wright with 10.
Georgia returns to action Tuesday night at home against Alabama.
