When you pass the ball well, establish an early inside presence, shoot lights out from beyond the arc and play solid defense, you can beat anyone. Georgia hasn't done all those things in a single game very many times this year. Unfortunately for the Bizarro Dogs from Starkville, everything came together for UGA today.
Georgia won 86-73. The AP's story is excellent. Some highlights:
Georgia (17-10 overall, 8-6 SEC) ended Mississippi State's four-game winning streak as Levi Stukes scored 21 points and Takais Brown added 17.Most interestingly to me, Georgia had about 15 assists in the first half. Overall, 23 of our 33 FGs came from assists.
Takais Brown scored eight of Georgia's first 12 points, all near the basket.
When Mississippi State added more size and began collapsing its defense around Brown, Georgia quickly adjusted with a barrage of 3-point shots. Georgia made six of its first eight 3-point shots to take big leads of 21-9 and 41-27 before settling for a 47-33 halftime advantage.
Georgia made 12 of 19 3-pointers for the game, including 5 of 7 by Stukes.
Much like the Auburn game, we established our inside game and the big men quickly and efficiently worked the ball back outside. The ESPN game flow shows a team that never had its signature offensive drought(s). We slowed the scoring a bit early in the 2nd half only to crank it back up later. We never came to a grinding hault like in so many other games, and the lead got as large as 21 because of it.
Game flow from ESPN.com. No scary long flat lines for us.
If we can hold serve at home vs. the Vols next Saturday, we still have a great shot of dancing.
See Also:
-- UGA vs. MSU Boxscore - ESPN.com
-- Stukes keys win - AJC (story in progress)
-- Photos -- Georgiadogs.com
PWD
