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Legge: UGA Should be Performing Better Than This

February 2, 2019
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ATHENS - No, this isn’t quite coming together the way it should be. 

Georgia fell below .500 for the first time this season after losing 86-80 to the Chickens on Saturday. It was the same old mistakes we’ve seen all season long - turnovers; sloppy offense and not getting stops when needed… particularly not rebounding the ball after stopping Carolina down three within a minute to play. 

This is how to you wind up with one win in eight SEC games. Its hard to believe Georgia will play this bad all year, but it is becoming less and less difficult to believe that they won’t. 

Georgia should be performing better than this. There are a few things that are making things difficult - namely missing a true point guard. But the mistakes that are being made, for instance Derek Ogbeide throwing the ball to no one during an offensive set in the second half, are being made over and over and over again.

It is sloppy. 

There may be an explanation for those types of mistakes, but there are no excuses for them. The Dawgs wound up with only 14 turnovers Saturday, which isn’t the end the world. But those are coming at bad moments. That Georgia only had nine assists during the game indicates that there is too much staleness, and not enough movement on offense. 

Turnovers are one of the best ways to lose a game. Often UGA’s turnovers are careless plays that are not necessarily coming from guards so much as they are coming from anyone on the court seemingly trying to play to fast or freaking out when there is no reason to. 

Its not that Georgia isn’t working - they took out Carolina on the boards 39-30 the same way they out-rebounded Arkansas in the middle of the week. 

Carolina shot the lights out Saturday - 57% overall and 69% from behind the arc. So that has a lot to do with the Chickens winning on a day where Georgia out-rebounded, had more steals, fewer fouls committed and seven more second-chance points than their fine-feathered foes.

This is a long slog. Basketball is a 30-plus game season, and we are on game 21. Programs need to build towards the end of the seasons, but there’s been nothing good about this new year so far for the Dawgs outside of their own hot-shooting day against Texas a week ago.

We are a long way from a finished product for Tom Crean. The way UGA is playing right now isn’t a problem, necessarily, for the future of the program because 2018-19 was always going to be about how Georgia plays rather than if it wins or loses. 

But right now these Dawgs are making game-losing plays at important times. As soon as they start making the right play at the right moment things will turn. Even then the process will be slow. Fans are on board, but they will start grumbling soon, too, if they have not already.

Winning at Alabama midweek isn’t too much to ask. Its just hard to see the Dawgs, who were 2.5-point favorites today and lost, figuring things out soon.

 
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