Despite seemingly dominating No. 15 Tennessee at times, the Georgia Bulldog basketball team ended its SEC opener the same way it ended its previous two games, with a loss. The Bulldogs fell to the Volunteers 86-77 on Saturday in Athens, as both teams started conference play.
Tennessee’s Tyler Smith led all scores with 24 points while adding 11 rebounds, and Georgia was paced by Terrance Woodbury’s 18 points. The Bulldogs led for a stretch of nearly 10 minutes in the second half, building a lead as big as 10, but could not make the necessary plays to come up with the win. “A lot of good things happened for our team, but the rebounding continued to be a weak spot that we have to take care of,” said Georgia head coach Dennis Felton. “Obviously we didn’t quite finish.”
Much of the good for Georgia started as it took its first lead of the second half on a driving Zac Swansey layup that put the Bulldogs up 42-40 with over 16:14 left to go in the game. Over a minute later, a Swansey 3 put Georgia up 45-42 and two minutes later a Dustin Ware jumper gave the Bulldogs their biggest lead at 54-44. “During that stretch when we dominated them, we were taking care of the glass,” Ware said. “But as soon as we got away from it that’s when they started coming back.”
Tennessee (10-4, 1-0) retook the lead, 73-72, on an offensive rebound put-back by Smith and with Georgia down one possession (77-74), at the 2:11 mark of the second half, a Bulldog turnover off of an inbounds play led to a Tennessee possession that ended in an offensive rebound and two Smith free throws, extending the Volunteers’ lead to 79-74. “If Tech was a sign, this game from a rebounding standpoint was an exclamation point to our team of what we’ve got to come to grips with,” Felton said.
Tennessee outrebounded Georgia 48-35, including 19-8 on the offensive boards, which comes on the heels of the Bulldogs’ loss at Georgia Tech in which they were outrebounded 50-35. Felton said his team also lost some poise while dropping its second consecutive game after surrendering a double-digit lead in the second half. The Bulldogs were up by 13 against Tech. “We had been doing a very good job of executing, getting just what we wanted, having them on their heels, scoring with real good consistency,” Felton said. “When they got back and tied it and it became a one-possession game, we had some panicky possessions, where we rushed shots.”
For the game Georgia (9-7, 0-1) did manage its turnovers better than in recent outings, committing 17, while Tennessee committed 16. The Volunteers actually had more turnovers than Georgia in the first half, 12-10, as both clubs played a sporadic and sometimes sloppy opening 20 minutes. First-half rebounding and outshooting Georgia 45.2 percent to 34.5 percent from the field helped Tennessee take a 36-32 halftime lead. Ware, Woodbury and Trey Thompkins all paced Georgia in the first half with six points, while Smith was the high point man for Tennessee with nine. Thompkins finished with 14 and Ware finished with 11, as they joined Woodbury in double figures.
Both teams came into the game on two-game losing streaks. Tennessee lost at Kansas before dropping a home contest to Gonzaga and the Bulldogs previously fell to Missouri before falling at Tech. Tennessee is the SEC’s lone ranked team, checking in at 15th in the AP poll and 25th in the coaches Poll. Despite their recent struggles, the Volunteers are thought to be one of conference’s best teams if not the best, but the Bulldogs played uneven and almost came away with a win. “We can beat just about anybody in our conference,” Thompkins said. “It’s on us to take care of what we have to do in order to do that. […] We’ve just got to step on the gas next time when we have the opportunity to take control.”
Georgia stays in the SEC’s Eastern Division when the team visits Vanderbilt on Wednesday night. The Bulldogs return home next Saturday when Kentucky comes to Athens.
Butler can be reached at jbutler@scoreatl.com.
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