Georgia Bulldogs 98, Mississippi Rebels 76: The (Slightly Delayed) Instantaneous Ill-Informed Roundball Wrapup
by T Kyle King on Jan 15, 2011 10:00 PM EST
in Georgia Bulldogs Basketball
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PrintIt was a great day for me personally---I attended an old friend’s wedding---but it was less than a stellar Saturday in Bulldog Nation, as the Gym Dogs carded a solid 195.8 yet fell to Utah by one-tenth of a point, Justin Houston waited until the eleventh hour to declare for the NFL Draft, and Georgia alumnus Royal Marshall passed away suddenly at the age of 43. Fortunately, the day in Bulldog athletics was redeemed by the men’s basketball team claiming its first SEC road win of the Mark Fox era . . . and how!
The Georgia Bulldogs never trailed in Oxford, opening the game with a 7-0 run on the way to a 53-37 halftime lead over the Mississippi Rebels. The Red and Black built on the 16-point advantage they held at intermission, outscoring their hosts by a 45-39 margin in the final 20 minutes to win the game going away.
Georgia outscored Ole Miss 44-30 in the paint, and the Bulldogs pulled down 32 rebounds to the Rebels’ 21. The Classic City Canines hit half of their shots from beyond the arc (6 of 12) while knocking down an astounding 26 of 27 free throws. While the home team’s bench outscored the visitors’ reserves by a 23-11 margin, the Red and Black starters rendered yeoman’s service, with each of the first five logging at least 28 minutes on the court. The Rebs’ Chris Warren was a non-factor in his 32 minutes of playing time, as he missed nine of 12 field goal attempts and five of six three-point tries while being sent to the line for just two free throws.
Gerald Robinson led the way with a season-high 22 points, but he was one of five Bulldogs to score in double figures. With the win, Georgia improved to 13-3 overall and 2-1 in conference play heading into a three-game homestand. The Fox Hounds still have 13 SEC games to go, so it is a bit early yet to be making plans for an NCAA Tournament berth, but the Athenians today cleared a major hurdle with room to spare. Now we will find out whether these Bulldogs can handle prosperity as well as adversity. When was the last time we had the opportunity to ask that question of a Georgia team in any sport?
Go ‘Dawgs!
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Unbelievable win today.
Gerald Robinson has really stepped up his game. In the three SEC games he is averaging 19.3 ppg with 60% from the 3 pt line…and he is 17 of 18 at the free throw line after shooting only 53% from the line in the non-conference games. Robinson seems to be leading a stunning team-wide turnaround from the line, as the Dawgs are 67 of 77 from the line in those SEC games…or a whopping 87%!
We knew he could handle the ball, defend, and get to the rim…if he turns out to be a dependable shooter from beyond the arc and the FT line, this team’s lack of depth will be the only thing it currently lacks from being a truly lethal offensive juggernaut.
The improvement they have shown form the start of the year on offense is remarkable.
While all of those things are tremendous and the Dawgs looked great.
Those are exactly the things that concern me. How long can we keep up the incredible shooting both from the outside and from the free throw line. When or if we don’t shoot with a tremendous percentage, does that mean we’re toast for that game? Did we allow so many points to a “not so good” team because we were ahead by so much or because our defense was porous today? I’m all for our team being offensively talented and scoring a points in bunches, but when you play a pretty poor team, you’ve still got to play a complete game and let the scout team finish the game and if the poor team scores, then nobody really cares.
I don't know if you saw the game
but yes, we relaxed on defense after taking a huge lead. But when the game was in doubt at the start the defense and rebounding were very solid. They held SEC-leading scorer Chris Warren to 9 points on 3-12 shooting. Ole Miss shot in the low 40% for most of the game.
I watched it...
I didn’t get to hear all the stats that were thrown around (8 year old daughters don’t allow for such things). It just really concerns me that Coach Fox felt the need to keep our starting 5 and even rotate in the 6-9 guys until very late in the game. Get the win, sure, but it still concerns me that we didn’t close them out completely earlier in the game so that the guys nobody knows could get in with 5 minutes or so left.
I guess I should add
that I have experienced being up big in a game and having my team defense relax and then the second half starts and we couldn’t buy a bucket, and couldn’t stop a runny nose. I don’t like defensive relaxing.
I get your point--
but at 11:01 we went up 72-51 and were never up by less than 20 points the whole rest of the game (and were five times up by 27 points) on the road in conference. How is that not closing them out? Why he didn’t put the scrubs in is a mystery, but we were up by 20+ points from the 11 minute mark on. He certainly could have put the scrubs in if he wanted.
Well, the reason it wasn't closing them out
is simply because Coach didn’t feel comfortable resting the guys and bringing in the others to get a little SEC road game experience. Of course, if he explained that he was just trying to build some confidence in the main rotation, I’d understand that too.
Don't forget that Barnes missed the game
b/c of a death in his family. They mentioned this early in the game so really the Dawgs played a man down. Thus, this win is even more impressive b/c they are not a deep team to begin with.
The basketball game was a magnificent victory...
… but I have to admit that I’m very concerned about the performance of the Gym Dogs’ team.
We’ve already been worried coming into this season that Jay Clark is the Johnny Griffith of Georgia Gymnastics. Losing the first meet in which we compete against elite competition… at home, no less… that’s not a good start.
Basketball: The Best Thing Going at Georgia since 2011
"If there's one thing worse than chlamydia, it's Florida." ~ Emma Stone, Easy A
Everything is fleeting
But what SEC team right now is better than Georgia?
The travel challenges
Worked out, IMO. The team, by circumstances, we ’re forced together for several days where I think they were able to discuss the Vandy game. Almost like a mini-camp…where they focused on the next task. It paid off. The offense looked great.
"If we score, we may win. If they never score, we'll never lose."
-Erk Russell
by DavetheDawg on Jan 16, 2011 8:17 AM EST via mobile reply actions
Dave, that is a really great point.
I’d love to hear someone talk with Mark Fox about that. They probably got more rest than usual too just because they were removed from the usual routine.
Did you see
at the very end of the Vandy game how Fox had his team huddled together when there was about 2.4 seconds left? Of course, the game was decided and the Vanderbilt faithful were booing…but one of the analysts pointed out that this was a great ‘teaching moment.’
I’m thinking Fox was telling his guys about how, even though Vandy led all the way, the game was winnable. Remember…Vandy didn’t score a FG for about 6 minutes late in the 2nd half. We got it to within 4 points at that point….then we couldn’t throw it in the ocean ourselves.
I believe Fox rallied his guys for the next game. This road trip was an opportunity to get these guys away from distractions and to focus on some basketball. Maybe when the final buzzer sounds at the end of this season, we’ll all look back on the events of this road trip as a perfect storm of sorts…for the Georgia Bulldogs!
"If we score, we may win. If they never score, we'll never lose."
-Erk Russell
Perhaps this explains why he left the starters in so long yesterday
-wanted to prove a point about playing the whole game? That has certainly been a problem this year-those stretches “off” have happened in all the games up ’til yesterday with the exception of High Point, and I was fully expecting to see it yesterday too.
I wondered what point Fox could possibly have been making at that moment, but whatever it was, let’s hope it took such that that more complete performances become the norm. As Eric pointed out, we will not be shooting 63% in all but the rarest future games even with robust effort.
I agree...
Hopefully Chuck will go into that on the show tonight.
@vineyard—kudos on the Griffith mention.
rbubp and Eric—I can tell you both know your B-ball and you both are making valid points. I would tend to be more of a “half glass full” kinda guy and would agree more w/ rbubp. Regarding keeping the starters in, Ole Miss has got a pretty good team and I think Fox felt like this was a vital game to win. On the road in the SEC, a 20 point lead can start to vanish pretty quick. All in all, I thought it was a great game plan and performance. And like several of us have said for awhile now—having Robinson is making all the difference with this team.
How 'Bout Them Dawgs!
by Marshmanslim on Jan 16, 2011 1:56 PM EST up reply actions
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