Dawgs Robbed in Mississippi

Best game of the year, by far.  UGA loses by 10 to Ole Miss in overtime.

Would have liked to see Kenny Gaines start the second half.  I think he earned it.  Gaines was on a roll at the end of the first half and had scored 8 points on 3 of 4 shooting.

Since Marshall Henderson had three fouls and he wasn't quick enough to guard Gaines, I would have gone right after Henderson by isolating Gaines in the post or on the wing.

Fox has to recognize that you have to go with the hot hand.  Yanking Gaines out after good plays and letting him sit until the second half is half over won't get it done.  Gaines went in somewhere around the 10:00 mark and hit two quick buckets.  He could have done that earlier had he started after intermission.

The story of the game was that Georgia set up an alley-oop play at the end of regulation.  Djurisic threw the ball in and Donte Williams caught it and laid it off the glass.  He was undercut by an Ole Miss player who also fouled Williams up top.  The referees didn't call it.  That play was just the most egregious biased call of the night.  There were plenty of others.  They shot 36 free throws and we only got 19.

Hard to fault the Dawgs on this one, though.  We had 8 players shoot at least 50 percent from the floor.   Gaines finished the night with 13 points on 5 of 8 shooting, and 2 rebounds in just 18 minutes.  Sherrard Brantley missed two three-pointers and went 0 for 2 from the field.  KCP shot 7 for 19.  Not his best shooting night, but he still finished the contest with 19 points and 12 boards.

Other than the substitution patterns, Mark Fox seemed to call a good game.  We'll have a tough finish to the season since we have away games at Alabama, Vandy and Arkansas, and we still have to play Kentucky.

We're now 6 and 6 in the SEC and 12 and 13 overall. 

Wow.

Best Georgia basketball game ever.

I've been around the program a long time, and although we've had bigger victories, more thrilling comebacks, more improbable wins, I don't remember ever having seen a better played game.

Defensively, we hounded their top scorer into a 3 for 12 shooting night. We had 7 blocked shots and 5 steals. I thought about it some, and I don't remember them scoring on a fast break bucket.

On offense, we sizzled right from the start. We out-shot and out-maneuvered their zone. We were on target from long-range.

When they went to the man-to-man, we ran the offense, several guys touching the ball, and fed the post from good angles. We scored on easy baskets.

We shot 50 percent from behind the arc, 63 percent from the field, and 96 percent from the line.

Eleven guys played, eight of them scored, and seven of those eight shot at least 66 percent from the field. All of our starters scored in double figures.

We had 26 assists on 33 field goals. We had just 7 turnovers. We broke their press. We had more rebounds, blocked shots and assists than Ole Miss. We had fewer turnovers and fewer personal fouls.

Our bench players combined for 11 points, 9 rebounds, 5 assists, 2 steals and 2 blocks, and just 1 turnover.

We outplayed them at their place. The game was on t.v. The Dawgs were clearly the superior team.

Mark Fox got his first SEC road win, and we couldn't have played better basketball.

Congrats to Coach Fox and the team.

DM

Waiting to Excel

The University of Kentucky players are bonding. They seem to be eager to get the season underway.

Down at Mississippi, the team is trying to figure out how their roster will look. The NCAA has lots of questions, and it remains to be seen whether Renardo Sidney will be allowed to play this year.

South Carolina won the division last year. Good video with Coach Horn and Devan Downey, their talented point guard.

Should be a good year for SEC basketball.

Coach Kennedy Arrested

I could make a joke about "mug night," but I won't.

Coach Kennedy was arrested for assault after he got into an altercation early Thursday morning with a cab driver. Coach Kennedy and another man had just left the Lodge Bar in Cincinnati. The cabbie alleged that Kennedy punched him and shouted racial slurs.

Hopefully, the truth will come out.