ATHENS — Georgia basketball remains on the inside of the NCAA Tournament “Bubble” even after Tuesday’s night’s blown opportunity against Texas A&M.
The Bulldogs are listed among the “Last Four In” by NCAA tourney expert Joe Lunardi in the most updated “Bracketology” 68-team field projection. The SEC Network reported late Tuesday that Lunardi said the Bulldogs are projected to be the last at-large team in the field after their most-recent loss.
Georgia (16-9, 4-8 SEC) was in position to steal a road win at No. 8 Texas A&M (19-5, 8-3) with a 32-23 halftime lead after Blue Cain blistered the nets for 15 points in the first 20 minutes.
Amazingly, UGA was up over Coach Buzz Williams’ team even with Georgia star Asa Newell scoreless to that point, having been limited to 4 first-half minutes after picking up an early second foul.
The Aggies adjusted to the hot-shooting Cain at halftime, however, switching to a match up zone that disrupted the Georgia offense. Meanwhile, Texas A&M found its shooting touch and went on a 22-0 run en route to the 69-53 win in College Station.
The Bulldogs missed their first 12 shots from the field in the second half and weren’t able to hit a second-half field goal until Newell dunked with 7:20 remaining to cut Texas A&M’s lead to 55-42.
It was Newell’s only field goal of the game, as the likely SEC Freshman of the Year and first-round NBA draft pick finished with six points on 1-of-6 shooting from the floor and 4-of-4 from the free-throw line.
The good news for Georgia is that metrics don’t take into account style points — only opponents’ strength, and this represented another Quad 1 loss. A Quad 1 loss is any home loss to a team with a Top 30 NET ranking, a neutral court loss to a team with a Top 50 NET ranking or a road loss to a team with a Top 75 NET ranking.
The Bulldogs slipped only one spot — from 34 to 35 — in the all-important “NET” computer rankings used by the NCAA tournament selection committee.
The committee, which selects the at-large teams for the 68-team field, also looks at conference affiliation, which greatly favors Georgia making the NCAA tournament if it can get three more conference wins by the end of the season.
The SEC, amazingly, has four of the top five ranked teams in the most recent AP Top 25 and is on pace to break the NCAA tourney record for most teams in the field from one conference.
Indeed, Lunardi’s latest projections have 13 teams making the field — Georgia in that precarious 13th spot, penciled in as one of the four teams that would be slotted for a first-round (play-in) game that sets the 64-team bracket.
More good news for Georgia is that it will have a chance to play two of the SEC teams projected in the field just ahead of it — Texas and Vanderbilt are among Lunardi’s “Last Four Byes” teams in the field.
Next up, however, the Bulldogs have another Saturday home court showdown with a ranked SEC opponent, as No. 21 Missouri comes to Stegeman Coliseum for a 3:30 p.m. showdown.
It’s not a must-win, but it’s close — the two games after that are the following Saturday (Feb. 22) at No. 1-ranked Auburn and then the following Tuesday at home against No. 3-ranked Florida.
Georgia has a very winnable homestretch after that, traveling to play at currently unranked Texas on March 1, followed by a March 4 road game at unranked South Carolina and the regular-season home finale on March 8 with Vanderbilt.
