UGA Basketball's Wonderful Trip to Austin Sets Up Fun Two Weeks for Dawgs

UGA basketball had one of the best Saturdays it could have imagined, and that was even before the Dawgs took the court to dress down Texas - a near 20-point beat in Austin that could bounce the Horns right out of the NCAAs. 

As Georgia watched, perhaps with glee, teams surrounding them on the fence about the NCAAs took horrifying loss after horrifying loss Saturday. 

Oklahoma, which has been alleged to be in the NCAAs by both CBS and ESPN, took yet another loss. The Sooners have three times the amount of SEC losses as they have wins. Their overtime loss at Ole Miss was just another step towards the brink that will be their season over the next two weeks. 

Oklahoma is in dire straights right now. 

Then Arkansas, which all but stole a win over Georgia earlier this season in Fayetteville, was absolutely run out of the gym in Southern Cootlumbia - a 72-53 loss where the score wasn’t indicative of how bad Carolina hammered the Hogs. According to the AP, It was the first time this century that an Arkansas team scored fewer than 15 points in a half. 

Yikes. 

Arkansas was supposed to be one of the final teams with bye in the tournament. Not right now. 

For all of the chaos of a March Saturday in college basketball (and there is always chaos), what needs to be keep into perspective here is that UGA has helped itself more this week than it hurt itself over the two or three-week stretch before that. 

That may be hard to understand, but in basketball you need to win the “right” games. Losing the “right” games (at Auburn, at A&M, State and Missouri) is OK - not ideal, but OK. Losing the wrong games? That can’t happen. 

That’s what happened to Arkansas, very specifically, Saturday. 

Georgia really needed these last two wins. It was go time. The calendar set up this way - there would be opportunities at the end of the season, and UGA was going to have to take advantage of them.

They have. 

The win over the Gators coupled with a road win at Texas gives Georgia two quad-one wins in a matter of five days. That’s one of the best weeks in college basketball - for anyone. Georgia was 30th in Net rankings before the State game. They proceeded to lose four games in a row. Now they’ve won two in a row, and they are at 33. 

The two wins massively outweighed the four losses. 

But today isn’t selection Sunday. If the season concluded today Georgia would be in - very possibly as a No. 10 seed. The challenge moving forward in the final two games of the season is that Georgia won’t help itself a ton by winning those games, but they could hurt themselves with losses. 

Carolina will host Georgia Tuesday night, and the Cocks’ win over the Hogs on Saturday pushed them up to No. 88 overall. That means the game in Columbia will be a quad-two game for sure. The same will be said about the regular-season finale vs. Vandy (39). That’s going to be a quad-two game between two teams trying to figure out if they can be a nine seed (you would rather be a ten seed, but perhaps you could play closer to home as a nine (?)). 

The point?

Georgia is playing better. They are on the front foot. Texas wasn’t ready to compete at all Saturday night. The Dawgs just whipped their ass. Easy layups. Open jumpers. Easy putbacks. It was about as simple as beating as can be. 

Frankly, UGA has been ready for all of these games. They’ve just had a few bad second halves, which have cost them. 

That wasn’t the case in Austin. 

What is harder to know is just how good Georgia is or can be. This is a program that has wins over the No. 4 (Gators), No. 15 (Kentucky) and No. 18 (St. John’s) teams in the nation. They’ve played No. 1 (Auburn) about as competitively as anyone - and UGA has played them twice.

What I’m trying to figure out is if Georgia is really being held down (record wise) because of how challenging this league is (it is very, very challenging), or because of their own mistakes (that’s some of it as well). 

How many teams are going to draw the likes of Vanderbilt in the first round of the NCAAs and get worked? Clemson is a very, very good team. They know exactly what they are doing. They lost to the worst team in the SEC. It was on the road, but they lost to the worst team in the SEC. They might win the ACC.

St. John’s won the Big East on Saturday. They lost to Georgia on a neutral floor earlier this season. Need I bring up the ACC-SEC Challenge?

With two games to play in the league, Georgia can still get the No. 8 seed in the SEC Tournament… nearly everything has to go their way, and that seems unlikely even with two wins, but it is mathematically possible (full disclosure - I didn’t do all the math). 

What’s far more likely is anywhere from the No. 9 seed to the No. 13 seed. That said, Georgia would really like to avoid a meaningless game in the SECT. Playing South Carolina or LSU on the opening day of the tournament… those are not great situations because you have a lot to lose there. 

Georgia probably only needs one or two more wins to get into the NCAAs. If they handle that in Cootlumbia and then Athens, then Nashville will only be about seeding. Still, the draw for the SECT is going to matter a lot. UGA has proven it can beat the Gators. It has played Auburn hard twice. It has beaten Kentucky. The tournament will be in Tennessee. Playing any of those teams in Bridgestone Arena before you have to is soemthing you would prefer to avoid. 

If Georgia could figure out how to play State and Missouri in Nashville that would be ideal (get Greg Sankey on the phone).

But this is what it is. At some point you have to go get things done no matter what you are facing. That’s happened lately for the Dawgs. Can they keep it going? 

It seems like they can.