Georgia has raced to a 10-2 record – following Tuesday’s 70-55 win against Charleston Southern at Stegeman Coliseum – by doing exactly what the Bulldogs’ RPI rating suggests.
The Bulldogs have beaten all the teams rated below them on a manageable pre-conference schedule and have lost to the only two teams who are rated higher.
All of which raises a valid question: has the Bulldogs’ strong start – which includes a number of too-close-for-comfort victory margins against overmatched opponents – provided reason to believe Georgia will make its first NCAA tournament appearance in three years? Or is it simply too early to tell what to make of this year’s club?
Georgia’s second-year coach Mark Fox believes he has a good feel for what to expect as Southeastern Conference play approaches.
“I think the league’s gonna be a monster,” Fox said. “Our division’s terrific, but we go into it this year with a team much more prepared to deal with it. We think we can give ourselves a chance, and I like that, where a year ago we were fighting uphill.”
There are encouraging signs as the Bulldogs move toward SEC play.
Fox’s second Georgia club has won all three of its games in an opponent’s gym after failing to win a single road game a year ago. Georgia went 8-5 in its pre-conference schedule en route to a 14-17 record last year, but the Bulldogs are now 10-2 with only their lowest-ranked opponent to date – No. 305 in RPI Eastern Kentucky, which visits Athens on Friday – left before the stakes increase considerably.
Georgia, which is ranked 51st by CollegeRPI.com, plays its SEC opener against No. 8 Kentucky on Jan. 8, followed by games against No. 21 Vanderbilt, No. 59 Ole Miss and No. 22 Tennessee.
That’s an enormous increase over the level of difficulty the Bulldogs have faced thus far, including only three top-100 opponents – No. 72 UAB, which the Bulldogs beat 66-64, and No. 15 Temple and No. 37 Notre Dame, both of which beat the Bulldogs at the Old Spice Classic in Orlando.
Otherwise, the highest-rated team on Georgia’s pre-conference schedule is No. 120 St. Louis, and six teams are rated No. 210 or worse.
“I think the schedule we’ve played has been real comparable to the other teams in our league,” Fox said. ” … We’ve played a Big 12 team, an ACC team, a Big East team and I think we’re getting a good feel for what we have.”
Tuesday’s game wasn’t much of an indicator, as the Bulldogs quickly built a big lead, enabling Fox to give double-digit minutes to 11 different players.
That was beneficial for a Georgia club playing its fourth game in 11 days.
“I think the big thing is it gave a lot of our guys a chance to rest, get our legs back under us – even after the (Christmas) break,” said point guard Dustin Ware, who was averaging a team-high 32 minutes per game before playing only 14 on Tuesday. “It was a chance to get fresh and just get ready for league play.”
The healthy lead was a somewhat new convenience for the Bulldogs, who have won six games by three points or fewer.
The comfortable margin enabled Fox to mix up his lineups, and he liked much of what he saw – particularly from newcomers Marcus Thornton and Donte Williams, both of whom had five points and three blocked shots.
“We have not had a lot of games where we could do that, and we were able to get some different lineups in there tonight and get some significant minutes for those younger guys,” Fox said. “I thought Donte Williams and Marcus Thornton both made really good plays tonight. … They needed time on the floor so they could make good things happen.”
Performances like that give Georgia’s returning starters more confidence that they can improve upon last year’s 5-11 conference mark.
“We still have guys who are learning and we still have guys who are gonna contribute more,” said forward Trey Thompkins, who scored 13 points in 21 minutes. “Guys like Donte, Marcus and Sherrard (Brantley), they’re getting better and getting comfortable in our system now, so we’re expecting even bigger things from them.”
Stars Thompkins and Travis Leslie helped the Bulldogs build a comfortable 41-20 lead at halftime – with Thompkins nailing a pair of shots in traffic in the lane and Leslie providing a pair of his trademark putback dunks and another off an alley-oop pass from Gerald Robinson.
The Bulldogs led by as many as 33 points in the second half before easing off the gas and allowing Charleston Southern (6-7) to cut its margin of defeat to 15 points when Buccaneers guard Jamarco Warren hit a 3-pointer at the buzzer.
Warren led all scorers with 24 points, but Fox was pleased with the Bulldogs’ overall defensive effort on a night where they simplified their offensive gameplan to focus on the defensive end of the floor.
That illustrates another difference between this year’s club and the one from Fox’s debut season. The Bulldogs are now fine-tuning specific aspects of their game as conference play approaches, with intentions of competing in a strong division, where Fox’s staff was still figuring out what kind of team the Bulldogs could be at this point a year ago.
“As we get near league play, I think we have a better idea for what we can do and what we can’t do,” Fox said. “It’s also important to understand what we can’t do so we stay away from that.”
