Well, that sucked.The Georgia Bulldog basketball team shot lights out in the first half leading by as much as 19 points over Alabama. The first half ended with Georgia up 50-35. The Dawgs played exceptional defense, shot 9 of 13 from beyond the three point line and out hustled Bama....in the first half.
Unfortunately, UGA was out scored 43-26 in the second half. The Bulldogs finally surrendered the lead on the last shot of the game as Alabama won 78-76. The good guys from Athens were out scored 16-3 in the game's final 4 minutes.
(Image: Takais Brown. AP)
In my opinion, our players out played their players in the first half. And their coach out coached ours in the second half.
Yes, our players made bad decisions with the ball in the final four minutes. However, when the game is tied 76-76 with roughly 32 seconds left and 15 seconds on the shot clock, you have to execute something in a half court set. We couldn't. We passed around with a confused look on our players' faces until Sundiata Gaines missed an off balanced jumper at the shot clock buzzer.
The turning point of the game was Bama's switch to a 2-3 zone from the man to man defense that they had played for much of the first half. When the Tide went to the zone, the Dawgs looked totally and completely baffled. I'll post more later on the game.
At the end of the day, this loss doesn't really change anything. No one expected us to win this game to begin with, and there are still six SEC wins left on the schedule for an NCAA tourney bid. But the win would've been huge.
Kudos to Gaines, Mike Mercer and Takais Brown who played lights out.
PWD
