ATHENS – Jabri Abdur-Rahim’s career-high 23-point night fueled Georgia basketball’s offense to a season-high night of its own, beating Mount St. Mary’s 94-82.
UGA’s top scorer was simply dominant, shooting 5 of 9 from the floor and making all 10 of his free throw attempts before a scattered Stegeman Coliseum crowd Wednesday night. The 6-foot-8 guard scored early and often, leading the Bulldogs (8-3) through a sluggish start with 21 points in the first half.
Abdur-Rahim’s offensive explosion is nothing new to the Bulldogs this season. The South Orange, N.J., product currently holds the school record for single season free throw percentage (91.7) and has scored double digits in nine of UGA’s 11 games this season.
Abdur-Rahim also leads Georgia from 3-point range, shooting an impressive 55 percent from beyond the arc.
The Bulldog offense was much more collective in the second half. Illinois transfer RJ Melendez led the second half effort with 16 points, 3 assists and 2 rebounds. Noah Thomasson contributed another 10 points in the second half to keep the fast-paced Mountaineer offense comfortably behind.
As good as Georgia looked offensively, it left the defensive identity White has cultivated in the dust on Wednesday. The Mountaineers’ 82 points tie the most Georgia has allowed this season, going back to the season-opening loss to Oregon.
Mount St. Mary’s out-rebounded UGA 30-29 and scored 18 points off turnovers. Georgia coach Mike White also mentioned Georgia’s slowness defending the paint, where the Mountaineers scored 44 points.
White, whose team wins most of its games on the back of its defense, was still encouraged to see his team manufacture a high-scoring win.
“You like to see some of those shots go in and the way that our guys shot with them with confidence down the stretch,” White said. “We’ll reference this game in the future to a certain extent. For the most part, though, we’ve got to do a lot better than this defensively to compete in our league.”
Georgia’s offense sputtered through the first eight minutes of the game before a pair of runs took a 45-34 lead at the buzzer.
Abdur-Rahim provided Georgia’s only points through the first eight minutes on a 3-pointer and a pair of free throws. The Bulldogs suffered their largest deficit of the night when two Mountaineer free throws took a 14-5 lead at the 11:38 mark.
That was when the Bulldog offense came to life with a more vertical, aggressive attack. Justin Hill connected with Frank Anselem-Ibe on a lightning-quick alley-oop, sending Stegeman Coliseum into a frenzy.
“Downhill, aggressive... We definitely dumped our offensive game plan pretty early in terms of what we were doing on makes and misses and dead balls,” White said. “Justin Hill got us going a little bit with that Frank lob, playing downhill, driving it, utilizing ball screens. For the last 30 minutes of the game, we played a little different.”
Anselem-Ibe’s jam sparked a 9-0 run that pulled Georgia back even with the Mountaineers at 14. True freshman Blue Cain followed his 15th 3-pointer of the year with a gritty layup to put the Bulldogs within a possession.
The teams traded blows for a couple of minutes before Abdur-Rahim single-handedly exploded for an 11-point scoring run. The former Virginia transfer sank five free throws and back-to-back 3-pointers to give Georgia a 29-24 lead at the 5:43 mark.
Abdur-Rahim added the last five points to his 21-point half and Silas Demary Jr. cashed a buzzer-beating layup as the home crowd roared the Bulldogs into the locker room.
Georgia, riding a six-game win streak, is back in action playing host to North Florida at 3 p.m. on Friday.
