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Georgia went to Baton Rouge needing a win to secure the No. 3 seed in next week's SEC Tournament and came away with a resounding 69-61 win over the Tigers. The Bulldogs finish the regular season at 18-12 and 12-6 in SEC play.
Both teams got off to a great start offensively and battled through a closely contested first half. Georgia shot it well from beyond-the-arc but were hampered by a rash of turnovers. Johnny O'Bryant put the Tigers up 28-24 with just over two minutes remaining. The Bulldogs countered with a 6-0 run to end the half capped off by another three-pointer by Kenny Gaines that put Georgia up 30-28 at the intermission.
The Bulldogs started to slowly pull away in the second half. The continued to make things tough for O'Bryant who was double teamed for much of the day every time he touched the ball. LSU slowed offensively as Georgia controlled the pace at both ends of the floor. After turning the ball over 13 times in the first half, the Bulldogs finished with just 16 for the game. The lead grew to as many as 13 in the second half and every time the Tigers would threaten, the Bulldogs had an answer.
Kenny Gaines hit his first six three-point attempts and finished with 20 points and five rebounds. While Gaines provided a lift early, Charles Mann came up big in the end. Mann finished with a game-high 22 points and 10 rebounds. Georgia controlled the backboard as they out rebounded LSU 37-29. Marcus Thornton and Donte Williams combined for 11 points and seven rebounds but the job they did defensively on O'Bryant goes beyond the box score.
Andre Stringer scored 11 of LSU's first 18 points and finished with 22. Jarrell Martin added 13 off the bench and Jordan Mickey finished with nine. O'Bryant finished with five points and eight rebounds on 2-8 shooting.
The win caps off an improbable run through the conference for the Mark Fox's club. They still need to do some major damage in the SEC Tournament to have a chance to earn an NCAA bid but they are at least in position to do so.