University of Georgia Athletics
An Inspiring Bulldog Performance
February 19, 2017 | Men's Basketball
By John Frierson
UGAAA Staff Writer
Can you be inspired by a loss? Apparently so. At least I can be.
The effort the Georgia men's basketball team put forth against No. 13 Kentucky inside Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday was inspiring. It came in a disappointing loss, 82-77, but for me the end result didn't much matter. I was moved by what I saw long before the clock ran down to zero.
The Bulldogs played their hearts out, and their legs too. Guard J.J. Frazier, who scored a season-high 36 points and nearly carried his team to a win, had to stop as he walked out of the post-game interview room because his right leg was cramping.
"J.J. was ridiculous and controlled the whole game," Kentucky coach John Calipari said after his Wildcats escaped with the win. He later added: "We were lucky to get out alive. Literally, lucky to win this game."
Yante Maten, the Bulldogs' 6-foot-8 star forward, is the team's leading scorer and maybe best all-around player. It's between Maten, the junior, and Frazier, the senior, and together they form one of the SEC's best duo's.
Who knows what would have happened Saturday if Georgia had had both guys on the floor for the entire game. We know that in the Dogs' overtime loss at Kentucky on Jan. 31, the duo combined for 45 points, 10 assists and eight rebounds. But we never got the chance to see round two.
When Maten went down with a right knee injury 93 seconds into Saturday's game, what was to follow was unknown territory. Would the Bulldogs fold, hang around for a while or something else? It was definitely the latter.
There was no folding, no looking lost or dejected. No, the Bulldogs played and scrapped and threw lineups on the floor that hadn't been out there together much all season — playing some guys that have hardly left the bench in recent weeks — and right by Kentucky's side they stayed.
It wasn't always pretty, and it sure as heck wasn't easy, but the heart of this Georgia team might have been revealed in front of a sellout crowd at Stegeman Coliseum. Kentucky came in with four players averaging at least 12.7 points per game, while Georgia came in with two averaging more than 9.6 per game. And one of those two, Maten, was gone after 93 seconds. But it didn't matter.
Frazier played one of the best games of his wonderful career. He hit two 3-pointers, but it was by attacking the basket that he piled up the points. He finished 11-for-22 from the field and 12-for-15 from the free-throw line.
"It didn't change my mindset, I played the same way," Frazier said of playing without Maten. "I had the ball in my hands more with Yante out, but I played the same way I've been playing for four years."
Late in the game with the lead going back and forth — there were 14 lead changes in the second half — Calipari said he did the only thing he could do: "We had to trap [Frazier] at the end just to make somebody else try to beat us. We just started sending people at him."
It worked, barely.
"We're just trying to follow," Georgia junior forward Pape Diatta said of Frazier. "He's a leader and he's showing the way. We just follow."
The Bulldogs did follow and tried to pick up the slack left by the absence of Maten, who was averaging 19.4 points and 7.2 rebounds per game. Sophomore forward Mike Edwards immediately took over for Maten and finished with 10 points and three rebounds in 34 minutes.
"They just told me that I had to step in and take his place and play a big role with him not being there," Edwards said.
Starting guard Juwan Parker had 10 points and four rebounds, while Diatta had nine points off the bench and Turtle Jackson had six. Other guys might not have scored much, but they competed, scrapped and hustled and helped facilitate Frazier and the rest.
The Bulldogs looked like they grew as a team Saturday, making up for the absence of one of their stars any way they could. But Frazier said it started before that, during the team's come-from-behind 76-75 win at Tennessee on Feb. 11.
"You look back at the Tennessee game and [Maten] only played, I think, 14 minutes in that game [because of foul trouble]," Frazier said, "so I think they grew up more in the Tennessee game and it just carried over and showed in this game."
Whenever Kentucky would push ahead by four or five points, Georgia would answer. That was often Frazier, the 5-10 fearless one, driving in among Kentucky's big guys and figuring out a way to kiss one in off the glass and draw a foul.
Unfortunately for Georgia, every time the Dogs would tie or take a small lead, the Cats answered. The game was tied 73-all when Frazier drove through pretty much all five Wildcats on his way to a layup, giving the Dogs a 75-73 lead with 55 seconds left.
Kentucky tied it with two free throws 11 seconds later. Two more free throws with 25 seconds left, after Diatta had a shot blocked, put the Wildcats in front for good. Kentucky finished 23 of 28 from the line, going 9-for-10 in the final 44 seconds to end the Bulldogs' bid at an upset.
"I think this group is truly a team," Georgia coach Mark Fox said. "We gave it a run, we just couldn't close it."
No, they couldn't, but man did they fight.
A win would have been awesome, but even in the loss what the Bulldogs did Saturday was a powerful thing to watch. How could you not be moved and inspired by a suddenly shorthanded bunch giving everything they had and pushing a great opponent to the limit? Isn't that a big part of why we watch and care so much about sports in the first place?
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.
