All right, I’m late to the party, and I didn’t see the basketball game, and I have another event to cover, so, instead of an instantaneous ill-informed roundball wrapup, I’m going to fold the Fox Hounds’ latest debacle into a Saturday Sunday sports summary. Here we go:
In Blacksburg on Saturday, the Georgia track and field teams notched four wins and carded 19 season- or personal-best marks. Among the standouts were Torrin Lawrence, who won the 200-meter dash with a 21.12-second time that was the eighth-best in the nation this year. Waymond Storey was right behind Lawrence, finishing second with a 21.26 time. The banner achievement of the day, though, belonged to Morgann Leleux, whose career-best 14’4.5" pole vault set the meet record and qualified her to compete in the upcoming NCAA Indoor Championships.
I hate to say I told you so, but Mark Fox’s Georgia Bulldogs fell to 1-7 in SEC play with a 73-62 road loss to Tennessee on Saturday. After hanging tough enough in the first half to head into the locker room trailing by two points in Knoxville, the Red and Black scored the first seven points of the second half on jump shots by Dustin Ware and Donte` Williams with a Gerald Robinson trey sandwiched in between. Ware and Robinson contributed 15 and 13 points, respectively, though all but two of Ware’s points came in the opening 20 minutes.
A quartet of free throws made by Kentavious Caldwell-Pope and Nemanja Djurisic gave the Bulldogs a 39-32 lead with 16 and a half minutes remaining in the game, but back-to-back three-point baskets drained by Jordan McRae and Trae Golden cut the Georgia edge to a single point. A miss by Caldwell-Pope and a foul on Marcus Thornton permitted Tennessee to take the lead.
The score was snarled anew at 43 with 12 and a half minutes left, but a Williams foul sent the Vols to the line, and the home team never thereafter trailed. Thornton and Williams both fouled out, and the Big Orange took command using a 22-7 run after falling behind, 41-34. In other words, the Fox Hounds played undisciplined basketball and proved incapable of accepting prosperity or addressing adversity. So what else is new?
Go ‘Dawgs!