Thanks to a bad shooting performance and the inability to contain a potent South Carolina backcourt, Georgia lost its regular season finale 68-51 on Saturday, finishing their SEC schedule with a 3-13 record. “We couldn’t make any shots,” said Georgia interim head coach Pete Herrmann.
Point guard Devan Downey led the Gamecocks with 23 points and eight assists, while shooting guard Zam Fredrick contributed 15 points to help ruin the Bulldogs’ senior day. Trey Thompkins and Chris Barnes led a Georgia club that shot 27 percent for the game with 10 points apiece. “I thought Devan really controlled the game,” Herrmann said. “He took time off the clock, managed the game, and got himself in deep with the option of him shooting it or getting it to guys like [Evaldas] Baniulis who can really shoot it.”
After a Terrance Woodbury jumper cut South Carolina’s lead to 38-32 with 13:19 to go in the second half, the Gamecocks (21-8, 10-6) took control of the game for good, going on a 10-0 run. A Downey bucket started the run and a Frederick 3-pointer capped it off. South Carolina went on to lead by as many as 20 as the Bulldogs could not make another run. “I kept encouraging them,” Herrmann said. “At one time or another I said let’s get [the lead] under seven, […] we couldn’t do it.”
The first half started out rough for both teams as Georgia and South Carolina combined to hit four of the first 14 shots put up and found themselves tied at 4-4 four minutes in. The Gamecocks were the first to get in a groove, however, as they later went on their first 10-0 run to take a 17-9 advantage at the 10:09 mark. The Bulldogs (12-19, 3-13) chipped into South Carolina’s lead a couple of times, but the Gamecocks held on and went into half up 27-23. Georgia was lucky to be down only four, after shooting just 25 percent from the field in the half.
Starting Bulldog point guard Dustin Ware was not much of a factor in either half thanks to foul trouble. Ware only played six minutes in the first half, as he picked up his third foul with 6:54 before halftime and picked up his fourth less than three minutes into the second half. “He got called for fouls early and that really put a damper on how he was going to play,” Herrmann said.
Woodbury and Corey Butler were honored before the game as they are the only two players Georgia will lose to graduation. After scoring 30 against Kentucky, Woodbury finished 4-for-21 from the field for nine points and Butler finished with seven points. “I think me and Wood had some jitters,” Butler said. “But it actually felt good to go out there and play knowing that this was the last game I was going to be playing in Stegeman.”
The Bulldogs go into the SEC Tournament as the sixth seed from the Eastern Division and will face the West’s No. 3 seed (the winner of today’s Mississippi State/Ole Miss game) on Thursday at the St. Pete Times Forum in Tampa, Fl at 3:15 p.m. The winner of that contest will face South Carolina, which is the East’s No. 2 seed. That game will be on Friday and is also slated for 3:15 p.m. “We’re going to start working tomorrow [and] Monday just to get prepared,” Woodbury said. “Just focus on the things we need to do, the things we didn’t do today other than our scoring because our shots are going to fall.”
Georgia enters the tournament as defending champions, winning the title a year ago after finishing 4-12 in the SEC.
Butler can be reached at jbutler@scoreatl.com.
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