On Wednesday night, Mark Fox’s Georgia Bulldogs played the worst game of basketball in history. If I went back in time to December 1891 and showed the game film to James Naismith, it would prevent the invention of the sport. This game is what drove Dennis Hopper’s character in "Hoosiers" to drink.
If you think I’m exaggerating, you didn’t watch this travesty. In the first half, the Red and Black scored 15 points, hit about one-fifth of their shots from the field, had more rebounds than points, turned the ball over nine times, and were outscored 14-0 in the paint. You think some of those statistics are typographical errors. They are not.
71 seconds into the contest, Georgia held a 5-0 lead. With 14 minutes remaining until halftime, Georgia still held a 5-0 lead, as the Bulldogs clanged more iron than Hephaestus. Nemanja Djurisic upped that tally to 7-0 with a pair of free throws, after which the Plainsmen went on a 22-3 run. That, too, is not a typo. A Connor Nolte trey and a couple of Donte` Williams foul shots in the final two and a half minutes sent the Athenians to the locker room trailing by eleven.
The Fox Hounds cut into the Auburn lead in the second half, largely through regression to the statistical mean, and the Red and Black were within three points of the Orange and Blue with roughly five minutes showing on the scoreboard. By this point, as the comment thread attests, the game had become the athletic equivalent of Albert Brooks’s ill-fated turn as the weekend anchor in “Broadcast News,” as it was just so off-the-chart bad, it was funny, but the Bulldogs persevered, pulling to within 51-49 with just under a minute to play, in order to preserve the illusion that there was hope of exiting Auburn Arena with a victory despite the ugliness of the outing. In the end, of course, a Tiger club hitherto understood to be the dregs of the SEC emerged with a 59-51 win over the Athenians.
Gerald Robinson contributed 16 points, eight rebounds, and four assists while going five-of-six from the charity stripe, but he also fouled out, as did Marcus Thornton. Kentavious Caldwell-Pope accounted for six points, half of which came on his lone successful three-point attempt. This team may not win another game all year. Seriously. Worst. Game. Ever.
Go ‘Dawgs!