University of Georgia Athletics
Dogs Getting Plenty Of Late-Game Drama
December 03, 2015 | Men's Basketball
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By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
It has been anything but an easy start for the Georgia men's basketball team. The Bulldogs are 3-2 after five games and every one of them has been decided in the closing minutes of regulation, and once in overtime.
The best example of how tight the Bulldogs' games have been is in the scoring averages. Georgia is scoring 70.0 points per game, while its opponents are averaging 68.2.
"We just want to win, we don't really care how -- one point, 10 points, it doesn't matter as long as we get a W in our column," junior guard J.J. Frazier said Tuesday night after scoring 23 points in the Dogs' 86-82 win over Oakland. "Close games help us for games down the road, because we've been there before."
They've certainly been there this season.
Georgia opened the 2015-16 season with a 92-90 overtime loss to Chattanooga. A week later, the Dogs got their first win in a 63-52 victory over Murray State -- a blowout victory by this season's standards. Georgia's third game was a 49-46 nail-biter win over High Point.
Last Saturday the Dogs played on the road for the first time, falling 69-62 at Seton Hall. And most recently, the 86-82 win over the Golden Grizzlies, in which five Dogs scored in double figures.
"We could play a bunch of awful basketball teams and win by 30, and give our team some confidence," coach Mark Fox said after Tuesday's win. "But against a good team do you really have the true confidence to beat a good team? But it's hard to get true confidence when you play really quality teams and they're hard-fought games and you drop a couple."
It sounds simplistic to point to the little things, but in tight games that really can make all the difference. In Georgia's foul-fest opener against UTC, which included 63 fouls called, the Dogs went 28-for-45 at the line. When you miss eight free throws in the first half and eight more in the second and then find yourself tied at the end of regulation, it's hard not to look back at all those squandered freebies.
Against High Point, when neither team shot even 30 percent from the field, Georgia went 17-for-20 from the line, while the Panthers made 7 of 17.
Georgia's largest margin of victory so far is 11, against Murray State. But that double-digit margin came very late. The Racers led 50-48 with four minutes to play, before the red-hot Kenny Gaines hit a 3-pointer with 3:39 remaining and then another 40 seconds later to put Georgia in front for good. And Frazier went 5-for-6 from the free-throw line in the final 54 seconds to give the Dogs a rare cushion.
"Everything's just a learning experience right now and I feel like we're kind of getting it," said Gaines, who leads the Dogs with 16.4 points per game.
In Georgia's seven-point loss at Seton Hall, the Dogs led for much of the first half and the first few minutes of the second. The Pirates built a nine-point lead with 10:45 to play, but Georgia was able to cut it to a point with 2:23 remaining before Seton Hall held on for good.
"We felt like we played well in a lot of areas at Seton Hall, we just didn't close the game," Fox said Tuesday.
As Frazier said, getting the win matters far more than how it came about. Of course, being able to sit your starters and play the backups in the closing minutes of a lopsided victory wouldn't be a bad thing, either.
"I wish I could kind of be like (Golden State Warriors star guard) Steph Curry, who usually doesn't even need to play the fourth quarter," Gaines joked. "I enjoy playing and this is my last year, so I wish I could play every minute."
The Bulldogs are back in action at Stegeman Coliseum on Friday against Kansas State (5-1), It will be the first road game for the Wildcats, who have four wins by 10 points or more. Their last win, on Nov. 29, was a 68-66 victory over South Carolina State.
John Frierson is the staff writer for the UGA Athletic Association and curator of the ITA Men's Tennis Hall of Fame. You can find his work at: Frierson Files. He's also on Twitter: @FriersonFiles and @ITAHallofFame.
