Georgia came out shooting in the first half to take the lead against Stony Brook, then held on and made a late run to clinch their first win of the season.
The Bulldogs shot a torrid 58% from the field in the first half, accomplishing two things fans had desperately wanted to see them do after the season opening loss to Georgia Tech- shooting the ball better and getting off to a strong start rather than looking disjointed and out of sorts coming out of the gate. While they cooled to 44.7% on the night by the end of the game, it was still a nice offensive effort, including some ball movement that looked better than what we saw against the Engineers.
Georgia had a disadvantage in trips to the foul line, but speaking frankly, they had some help from the officials on that. The fact that they stayed composed and actually hit fairly consistently when they got to the line was just another positive.
Charles Mann paced the 'Dawgs with 16 points on --- of -- shooting. Mann was only one of five Bulldogs to reach double figures on the night. Kenny Gaines chipped in 13 from his guard spot, and big men Marcus Thornton, Nema Djurisic and Yante Maten all scored 10 or more. It was another display of the type of team-wide execution that marked the best Bulldog efforts of 2013, and a good sign against a good team early in the year. While I'm not ready to say this Red and Black squad is a tournemtn team, they did avoid having the type of bad outing that keeps you out of the Big Dance come March, a marked improvement over last season's November to forget.
The 'Dawgs return to action Friday night at 7:00 p.m. in Stegeman Coliseum against Troy, looking to