Led by The T&T Show, Georgia dominated the No. 8-ranked Tennessee Vols today 78-63 in Stegeman Coliseum before a wild, soldout crowd. “That was a hard fought game and we played very well,” said UGA head coach Mark Fox. “We had a great deal of respect for Tennessee coming in and our kids practiced hard all week so I am very proud. Anytime you beat a good, well-coached and balanced team, you have to feel good about it. ”Travis Leslie and Trey Thompkins combined to shoot 17-24 from the field for 40 total points in helping UGA gain their first SEC win of the season.
“Now we know that we’re not ‘ofer’ the conference,” Thompkins stated triumphantly. “It’s a blessing for that because we’ve been working so hard and it’s become somewhat of a strain on us because we’re fighting every day to get better. We’re doing everything we can to get that win and now we got it. All the work paid off.”
The story of the game was simple as the Dawgs (9-8, 1-3) out-shot and out-rebounded the highly regarded Vols, who had won seven-straight coming into today. Georgia shot a blistering 56.3% from the field while the ice-cold Vols made just 42.3%. Even more telling were numbers from three-point land where UGA shot 7-12 while Tennessee missed on 13 of 16 attempts. Fox’s squad out-rebounded the Vols 35-24 and also had a dominating 17-9 edge in assists.
“I’m obviously disappointed,” explained Tennessee head coach Bruce Pearl. “I thought we’d get much better looks against the zone. But this is two-straight games now where Scotty Hopson is only guy that’s made a three-ball. When you play against a 3-2 zone, you’ve got to be able to shoot a little bit.”
It was Georgia’s first win over Tennessee since 2004 and Pearl’s first loss to UGA since taking over in Knoxville in 2005. The Vols had won 10-straight over UGA prior to today’s loss.
Needless to say, Pearl was impressed in his first encounter with Fox.
“I knew he’d done a great job at Nevada and does a really good job developing big guys,” praised Pearl. “I can tell you from studying his teams what they do offensively is really good.”
Despite more than a thousand Vol fans in attendance, including the men’s swimming team, Georgia enjoyed tremendous support from a raucous Stegeman crowd.
“One of the reasons I came to Georgia is because we have great fans,” said Fox. “We just had a great college game in Stegeman that was sold out and we had a great home-court advantage. That’s what college basketball is all about.”
After watching the Vols cut the lead to 12 early in the second half, Fox’s squad went on an 8-1 run to extend the lead back to 19. After a Dustin Ware three, Travis Leslie converted a three-point play to complete the rally.
Midway through the half, the Dawgs took their largest lead of the game when Thompkins drilled an open three-pointer to extend the lead to 58-36.
By the time “Rocky” (or a UGA student dressed as him) ran to the top of the coliseum with less than nine minutes remaining, the game was well in hand for the Bulldogs.
Thompkins led all scorers with 21 while Leslie poured in 19, at least six of them on acrobatic slam dunks. Leslie collected nine boards, also a game-high, and Thompkins pulled in eight. Remarkably, Leslie also led both squads with seven assists.
The Dawgs will travel to Gainesville on Wednesday for a date with the hated Florida Gators (13-5, 2-2).
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