University of Georgia Athletics
Dogs & Rebels in Regular-Season Finale
March 07, 2008 | Men's Basketball
Dogs & Rebels in Regular-Season Finale
Georgia plays host to Ole Miss at Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday in both teams’ final regular-season home game. The Bulldogs arrive at this game with a 13-15 overall record, 4-11 in SEC games. Most recently, they took a 59-54 decision at Auburn three nights ago. It was their second road victory of the season, their first of the league schedule.
Heading into the weekend, Georgia remainined one game behind fifth-place South Carolina in the Eastern Division standings. However, a Bulldog win on Saturday, followed by a Tennessee win over Carolina the next day, would lock these teams together in fifth place for the sake of posterity. The seedings next week at the SEC Tournament are another story. Only a commissioner’s coin flip would separate these two teams in the 2-team tie-breaker system employed by the SEC office. They have identical records by all five of the preceding tie-breaking criteria.
According to the league office, such a coin toss has never been required to determine seedings at the conference tournament.
Today also marks the final home contest for three senior members of the Georgia basketball program: manager Bryan Raker of Roswell, as well as team co-captains Dave Bliss and Sundiata Gaines. All three will be accompanied by their family members in a recognition ceremony before Saturday’s game.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Athens, Ga.
Tip-off Time: 4:06 p.m. (EST)
TELEVISION- None
GEORGIA RADIO- Georgia Bulldog Radio Network: Scott Howard (Play-by-Play), Jeff Dantzler (color)
Local stations: WSB-AM (750) in Atlanta & WPUP-FM (103.7) in Athens.
SATELLITE RADIO- The majority of Georgia basketball games in 2007-08 can be heard on XM Satellite Radio. Today’s game will appear on XM Channels 200. For up-to-date SEC programming information, click here.
ON THE INTERNET- For up-to-date information, log on to: http://www.georgiadogs.com
Online radio broadcasts of Georgia games can be found on the GXtra Web site (subscription required).
Probable Starting Lineups
(see attached pdf)
Georgia vs. Ole Miss
Saturday’s game is the 101st all-time meeting between Georgia and Ole Miss in basketball. Georgia leads the series, which began in 1928 and has been renewed annually since 1947, by a 64-36 count.
Ole Miss, in fact, is one of just three SEC opponents against which Georgia has a winning record in its all-time series. South
Carolina (46-44) and Auburn (87-85) are the others. The Bulldogs are close to the .500 mark against several others: Florida (96-101) and Miss. State (48-49).
Georgia has also won more games in Oxford (22) than at any other SEC venue. The Bulldogs are 22-24 all-time there, including two wins already in this decade (2001, 2003).
Georgia won the last meeting in Athens, 72-65, in the 2006 season and, in fact, has won six straight games against Ole Miss at Stegeman Coliseum. The Rebels’ last win here came in the 1994 season, when Hugh Durham and Rob Evans patrolled their respective sidelines.
Gaines in a Milestone Season
Twenty-eight games into his senior season, point guard Sundiata Gaines has made a rapid climb into Georgia’s career rankings of several categories.
Perhaps most important -- and reflective of his all-around skills -- Gaines recently became the only player in UGA history to amass 1,000 points, 500 rebounds and 400 assists in his career.
Most recently, Gaines became the school’s all-time leader in steals, surpassing Pat Hamilton’s mark of 216 during the Bulldogs’ trip to Hawai’i.
In the Vandy game Feb. 23, he became UGA’s third-leading all-time assist man, moving past G.G. Smith. Assuming his career average, he has an outside shot at moving into the No. 2 position by season’s end.
Gaines also recently became the 38th player in UGA history to score 1,000 career points, hitting the mark squarely with a then-career-best 27 against Grambling State. At his career average of 11.7 points per game, he stands a remote chance at finishing among the school’s top 10 all-time scorers. Today he stands in 13th place with 1,374 points and is nine points shy of passing his former teammate, Levi Stukes, and moving into 12th place.
Further, the 6-1 Gaines has a realistic chance to crack the school’s top 10 in career rebounding. He enters the Ole Miss game at No. 12 on this list with 645 career boards, nine behind James Banks (1980-84). Projecting his average of 5.6, he should end up between 650 and 700. John Johnson, a forward at Georgia from 1959-61, is the school’s No. 10 all-time rebounder with 684 rebounds. Among the existing list of leaders, Gaines is by far the shortest of them at 6-1.
And finally, were there a list of all-time leaders of minutes played at Georgia, Gaines would surely be a candidate for the record. He enters today’s game having already logged 3,695 minutes over 117 career games (31.6 avg.). For comparison’s sake, 4-year guards Rashad Wright and Litterial Green both averaged over 32 minutes per game over their careers.
Random Facts...
Sundiata Gaines and fellow senior Dave Bliss were elected by their teammates as co-captains of the 2007-08 Georgia Bulldog squad. The election took place just before the Dogs faced Clayton State in the lone exhibition contest. Both Gaines and Bliss have served as rocks of stability for this program that has undergone extensive reconstruction during their careers...
...Bliss earned his undergrad degree -- in Honors Political Science, no less -- in just three years. He participated in commencement exercises last May at Sanford Stadium. To keep his eligibility, the Wausau, Wis., native elected to pursue a second bachelor’s degree, this one in Real Estate.
...Academically speaking, Gaines is no slouch, either. He’s taking 20 hours this semester with the aspiration of graduating in May with a degree in Sociology. The Bulldogs practice each Tuesday & Thursday at 7:00 p.m., solely because Gaines has a senior-level class that meets those days from 5:00-6:30.
...Gaines won the second SEC Player-of-the-Week award of his career two weeks ago. He won the honor last season in December of 2006. His recent 3-game scoring total of 82 points is the best by a Bulldog since Jumaine Jones tallied 87 in a similar stretch of December, 1998.
...Through 28 games, Gaines has nearly the same assists average (4.1) as he did last season, when his 154 assists were the second-best total in UGA history. That figure is doubly impressive when you consider that Georgia’s top three scorers from 2007 are gone (Brown, Mercer, Stukes)...
...Still more on Gaines: last week he became the first UGA player since Rashad Wright (2001-03) to dole out 100 assists in three consecutive seasons. Against Vandy on Feb. 23, he moved into the No. 3 spot on UGA’s career assist list.
...Surely a scholarship is imminent for walk-on Corey Butler, who has become one of Georgia’s most valuable players lately. His first three weeks of January included career highs in points (11 vs. Ga. Tech) and minutes (31 vs. Miss. State). The microbiology major began his college career as a recipient of the state lottery-funded HOPE scholarship but has survived on student loans since losing the HOPE in 2007. He made the team through on-campus tryouts in the fall of 2005.
...It’s becoming apparent that a redshirt is imminent for freshman forward Jeremy Jacob. The Baton Rouge native played in six games this season before breaking the fourth metatarsal bone in his left foot. He had averaged 5.2 points and 3.3 rebounds before his injury. Jacob meets the criteria necessary for an additional year of competition eligibility, as granted by the NCAA.
...Gaines and fellow point guard Zac Swansey are the Bulldogs’ only players that have assist/turnover ratios in positive territory. Perhaps that explains why Georgia ranks 12th in the SEC in that category...Swansey is the first UGA freshman to play an entire 40-minute game since Gaines did it in 2005.
...In his fourth season as a full-time starter, center Dave Bliss is playing arguably the best of his career. His shooting percentages (53.7 from the field, 71.8 from the line) are both career bests, and his current scoring (7.6/game) & rebounding (5.5) averages are tops for his career. His 10 rebounds and 34 minutes Feb. 13 vs. South Carolina were both career highs...
...Georgia’s road record in the Dennis Felton era is certainly nothing to brag about, but in this 5-year period of mostly rebuilding, the Bulldogs have posted some impressive wins on the road. In Felton’s first four seasons, Georgia is but 9-42 in true road games. Chronologically, those wins have come thusly: 2004 (@Kentucky); 2005 (0-9); 2006 (@Western Ky., USC, Vanderbilt; 2007 @Wake Forest, Arkansas, USC; 2008 @Hawaii, Auburn.
...For the first time of this decade, perhaps, the strength of Georgia’s non-SEC schedule is a detriment to its national standing. As the SEC slate began, the Bulldogs ranked 277th out of 341 Division I schools in their SOS.
Of Georgia’s 13 pre-conference opponents, five of them rank among the bottom 100 schools in D1, including No. 340 (Jacksonville State). On the scale’s other end, Georgia’s highest-rated opponents include Wisconsin (17) and Gonzaga (35).
2th 274th
Georgia and the SEC
Following are a few tidbits about Georgia’s history in the SEC:
Georgia’s all-time record in SEC games, covering 74 years, is 467-680 (.407). That ranks 10th of the 12 current SEC members.
Georgia can claim one SEC regular-season championship (1990), one regular-season divisional title (2002) and one SEC Tournament crown (1983).
Georgia has had just one Associated Press SEC Player of the Year: Dominique Wilkins in 1981 and no POY, as voted by the league’s coaches since 1987.
Georgia has an all-time SEC Tournament record of 33-46, but it hasn’t played on Saturday at this tournament since 1997. That was also the last year a Georgia player (Ray Harrison) was selected to the 5-man All-Tournament team.
Since the league expanded and was pared into East and West Divisions in 1992, Georgia has a 122-148 (.451) record. Eight times since 92 Georgia has had a league record of .500 or better (1993, 95, 96, 97, 01,’03, 07).
Since the league’s expansion, Georgia has a 65-105 record (.382) record against the Eastern Division, a 57-44 mark (.565) against SEC Western Division teams. Bulldog teams have had winning records against the West in 12 of 16 years. Georgia’s only undefeated season against the West came in 2003.
In the 16-game SEC schedule format, Georgia’s most wins came in 2003, when it compiled an 11-5 mark. The Bulldogs’ timing, however, left much to be desired. That same year, Kentucky won the East with a perfect 16-0 mark and Florida placed second at 12-4. Georgia’s 11-5 mark would’ve won the West by two games.
