In 1966, the Clint Eastwood "spaghetti western" The Good, the Bad and the Ugly came out. It was good—very good.
That same year, Tom Crean was born, and his first season as a Georgia Bulldog basketball head coach was good—but also bad and ugly. Mostly the last two, actually.
It will be interesting to see what happens to this team in the near future. Some players will stay, some might go, but the new crop of Dawgs look very promising; there may be even more on the way. Here's my breakdown on the the good, the bad, and the ugly of this season.
The Good
Yes, I know it's hard to find good in an 11-21 season, but here are some bright spots.
First—and this one is a shout out to you, the fan—the men’s basketball teams set an attendance mark with 148,700 fans attending games at Stegeman this season. Occasionally the crowds fell short of great, but overall they were good, and it proved the fans of the Red and Black were ready for a change and were excited about the future.
Second, Georgia defeated both Georgia Tech and Florida this season. That's something all Bulldog fans should be happy about. No matter what either team’s record is, defeating in-state and other rivals is always big. The Bulldogs have now won four in a row against the Yellow Jackets. Since moving back to playing at the home arenas (1995-96 season), Georgia holds a 14-10 advantage in the series.
The other win you should be excited about was against the Gators. Coming into the game, Georgia was 38-65 all-time against Florida in Gainesville, including a win last season in overtime. After the win this season, the Dawgs won back-to-back games there for the first time since 2001 and 2002.
The team also had a nice win against Texas in which it made two thirds of their shots from the field. The Bulldogs were 32-for-48 from the field. The 66.7 percent was tied for the fourth most ever by a Georgia team. They also shot 12-for-17 from three-point land. That 70.6 percent mark was the third highest in team’s history.
There was some good individually as well, and it all starts with Nicolas Claxton. The second generation Bulldog star improved his scoring from 3.9 points per game as a freshman to 13 points per game as a sophomore. He also improved his rebounding from 3.9 to 8.6 per game. Out of the team’s 14 double-doubles, Clax had eight of them. Two times this season, he led or co-led the team in points, rebounds, assists, steals, and blocks in a game.
The last SEC player to do that at least twice in a season was Ben Simmons. He currently leads the conference in blocks per game, averaging over two and a half. His total of 81 rejections this season was the sixth most ever recorded by a Bulldog in a season. The top shot blocker on the list was his father, Charles. Check out the top six.
The younger Claxton was named second-team All-SEC by the coaches, just as his father was for the 1992-93 season. They were the second father-son duo to be named All-SEC for men’s basketball from the same school (Vanderbilt’s Frank and Luke Kornet).
Rayshaun Hammonds also had some bright spots this season before ending his season short with surgery to his right foot on March 7th. Hammonds finished second on the team in points and rebounds per game. The sophomore nearly doubled his average from 6.7 points per game as a freshman to 12.1 points per game as a sophomore. He became just the second Georgia player in the 2000s to have at least 30 points in a game with zero turnovers (Yante Maten did it twice). The feat was pulled off against Illinois State. His 31 points in that game were the highest by a Georgia player this season.
Senior Derek Ogbeide was third on the team in scoring when he averaged a career-best 9.7 points per game. His 5.7 rebounds per game were also second best as he grabbed ten or more three times this season. His 797 career rebounds makes his eighth all-time on the Bulldog list. Another list that he is on is career field goal percentage. He made 54.6 percent of his baskets from the field during his career, which makes him third all-time, if barely. Check this out.
Tyree Crump was fourth on the team in scoring. He nailed a career-best 64 three-point field goals. Nine times he had at least three in a game. He connected on 37.4 percent of shots beyond the arc, compared to just 34.8 percent in his first two seasons combined.
Jordan Harris showed a few moves, especially late in the season. Overall he averaged 7.8 points per game, but from January 19th to the end of the season he averaged 11.7 including double-digit performances in ten of those 14 games. His 26 in the season finale was his career-high.
William “Turtle” Jackson led the team in assists for the second straight season. He also had one or fewer turnovers in a game 18 times this season (more on turnovers later).
Other players shined from time-to-time, but it wasn't enough.
The bad
Unfortunately there was plenty of "bad" to choose from, as Georgia finished second to last in the SEC. They started off the season 9-5 before losing 16 of the final 18 games. They had seven losses on the season by six or fewer points. In a four-game stretch from February 16th to February 27th, Georgia lost to LSU, Mississippi State, Ole Miss and Auburn by a combined nine points. The Dawgs also lost by 20 or more points five times this season.
Overall, Georgia’s points per game, field goal percentage, and three-point field goal percentage ranked in the bottom half of the conference. The 2.1 assists per game that Turtle had to lead the team was the lowest the team-leader has had. (Media guide goes back to 1969-70 season on that stat.)
Once again the Bulldogs will not go dancing at all at the end of the season. In fact, the last Georgia coach to take a Georgia team dancing in his first season as top Dawg was Tubby Smith. Here's a list of the last seven full-time head coaches and what they did in their first two seasons as head coach.
The ugly
Turnovers, turnovers and more turnovers.
In 20 of 32 games this season, Georgia committed 15 or more turnovers. Six times it was 20 or more. To put that in comparison, Kentucky (consistently one of the top teams in the SEC) has committed 20 or more turnovers in a game nine times in the last ten seasons. In that Texas game in which Georgia shot 67 percent and scored 98 points, the team committed 26 turnovers. Can you imagine what it could have done if they'd cut turnovers in half? The Bulldogs averaged 15.8 turnovers per game, currently ranked 331st of 351 teams.
Another really ugly thing happened late in the season. In the team’s final two regular season games against Missouri and South Carolina, Georgia scored 39 and 46 points. They shot 25.5 percent and 26.2 percent from the field and 15.0 and 18.2 from three point land. The 39 points was one point shy of the lowest a Bulldog team has ever accomplished at Stegeman.
The last ugly thing I will mention is the comments from the coach following the Ole Miss game. I won’t repeat the words another time; the important thing is that Crean later apologized. We assume all of that has been smoothed over. It was an ugly incident, but it's in the past.
As I said in the first paragraph, Georgia has some exciting players that will join the team next season. Mix them with some of the Bulldogs who are returning from this season, and next season’s team could be very improved.
How much so? We'll soon see.
