ATHENS — Georgia basketball awakened Sunday ready to make up for lost time.
The Bulldogs’ program is finally, once again, headed for play in the NCAA basketball tournament after notching a 79-68 win over Vanderbilt in both teams’ regular-season finale on Saturday.
Georgia’s next stop is Bridgestone Arena in Nashville for a 9:30 p.m. (approximate) tip as a No. 11 seed against No. 14 seed Oklahoma in the SEC Men’s Basketball Tournament. The Bulldogs will arrive having already done enough work to secure what’s been an elusive NCAA tourney at-large bid.
ESPN’s updated projected bracket lists Georgia as a No. 10 seed in the 68-team field, hypothetically matched up with a No. 7-seeded BYU in a first-round match in Lexington, Ky.
The seeding and matchup doesn’t matter so much as being part of the so-called “Big Dance” conversation for the first time in 10 years.
Georgia fans can and will enjoy the apprehension of the upcoming”Selection Sunday” show, where they’ll learn when and where their program will begin their NCAA tournament journey.
Third-year Georgia coach Mike White completed the mission he was hired for, to change the direction and narrative of the program, with his recruitment and development of high school players mixed with the necessary experience and immediate impact of transfer portal talent.
But beyond securing talent, White found a winning edge by building a culture of chemistry and resilience that enabled the Bulldogs to withstand a 2-9 stretch at one point of the season and close with an SEC-best four-game win streak.
White, like most every other coach, talks about how important it is for his team to stay process driven.
But talking about focus and maintaining it are two different things amid adversity, especially in a culture where both the bar and expectations are set low, with at stream of pessimistic outside noise.
“Two huge in-season responses, two four-game losing streaks,” White said, asked about maintaining the necessary level of buy-in to accomplish this current SEC-high four-game win streak.
“The narrative is (was) ‘what is wrong with Georgia, wheels falling off,’ — are you kidding me? We lost to really, really good teams. We played more top teams than any team in college basketball.”
Indeed, eight of those nine losses in the 2-9 stretch were to Top 25 teams, and five of those losses in that span were to Top 10 teams on the road.
Georgia played more games against Top 10 competition this season than any team in the nation (8), drawing No. 1-ranked Auburn and No. 5 ranked Florida twice apiece by virtue of league scheduling.
“If I’m not mistaken, our worst loss of the season was to NET ranking 39 — I mean, we don’t even have an average loss, let alone a bad loss.”
Of course, much of that got lost in the shuffle among fringe fans, some quick to grasp at the low-hanging fruit of “same ol’ Georgia basketball.”
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“Coach White, pretty much from the start, he told us it’s not about the results, but the process,” said Tyrin Lawrence, a Vanderbilt graduate transfer at UGA originally from Monticello, Ga.
“He said when we’re winning there will be noise, and when we’re losing there will be noise, but as long as we take care of the process we’ll be alright.”
Georgia basketball more than alright — it’s four-game SEC win streak is currently the longest in a league that has proven to be the deepest the the sport’s history, with what would be a record 13 teams projected to make the NCAA tournament.
Georgia, as White noted, doesn’t have a loss to a team lower than No. 39 in the metric-based “NET” rankings (Arkansas, on the road, at that), and it has two top 10 wins against No. 5 Florida and a No. 6-ranked, Rick Pitino coached St. John’s team.
There were signs this Georgia basketball team had such a season in them, with the program cracking the AP Top 25 rankings for the first time in 14 years after winning two of its first three SEC games — including a victory over then-No. 6 basketball blue blood Kentucky — as part of a 14-2 start.
White, at the time, dismissed the relevance of the ranking, fully aware of the danger of putting stock in the achievement with the pitfalls that were surely ahead in a historically good SEC league.
“I’d be happy for our fans, but I don’t really care,” White said at the time.
Asa Newell, the projected one-and-done first-round NBA pick at the heart of Georgia’s resilience, echoed his coach.
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“We can’t let the outside noise in, because that’s poison … " Newell said in January of the early praise. “We’re just trusting the process, we don’t want to get too high or too low. We’re trying to raise the standard of Georgia basketball.”
Some two months later, the first step in that mission has been accomplished, with more opportunity ahead with the Georgia basketball Bulldogs riding momentum in March Madness.
Opening rounds SEC Tournament schedule
Wednesday
Game 1: No. 16 seed South Carolina vs. No. 9 seed Arkansas, 1 p.m. (SEC Network)
Game 2: No. 13 seed Texas vs. No. 12 seed Vanderbilt, 25 mins after Game 1 (SEC Network)
Game 3: No. 15 seed LSU vs. No. 10 seed Mississippi State, 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
Game 4: No. 14 seed Oklahoma vs. No. 11 seed Georgia, 25 minutes after Game 3 (SEC Network)
Thursday
Game 5: Game 1 winner vs. No. 8 seed Ole Miss, 1 p.m. (SEC Network)
Game 6: Game 2 winner vs. No. 5 seed Texas A&M (25 minutes after Game 5 (SEC Network)
Game 7: Game 3 winner vs. No. 2 seed Florida, 7 p.m. (SEC Network)
Game 8: Game 4 winner vs. No. 6 seed Kentucky, 25 minutes after Game 7 (SEC Network)
SEC in the NET rankings
2. Auburn
4. Florida
5. Tennessee
6. Alabama
12. Kentucky
16. Texas A&M
21. Missouri
28. Ole Miss
30. Georgia
34. Mississippi State
39. Arkansas
42. Texas
43. Vanderbilt
46. Oklahoma
85. LSU
86. South Carolina
