Braelen Bridges big day earns him SEC Player of the Week
Georgia Basketball’s Braelen Bridges earned SEC Player of the Week honors on Monday after a big showing for the Bulldogs in their 77-62 win over Notre Dame Sunday night. Bridges had 18 points on a perfect 9-for-9 shooting performance from the field.
Bridges played 18 minutes, eight in the first half and 10 in the second, and scored 18 points, eight in the first half and 10 in the second. With his big day – one that came one field goal shy of qualifying for a single-game school-record for field goal percentage – the 6-foot-11, 245-pound big man out of Atlanta upped his season scoring average more than a full point per game from 6.2 to 7.3. Last year Bridges was second on the team in scoring (12.9 points per game) and led the SEC in field goal percentage, shooting at a 63.4 percent mark. So far this season he’s 65.5 percent from the field.
“We both were playing like we were locked in,” Bridges said about he and his teammate Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe, who also finished perfect from the field as the duo combined for 32 points on 15-of-15 shooting. “If the ball is falling for us, I feel like it’s hard to beat us. You don’t know which one to guard, which one you can double team. If you can play like that, we’re hard to beat.”
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With the win over the Irish on Sunday, Georgia moves to 8-3 on the season with a pair of non-conference games at home remaining on the schedule. The Bulldogs take on Chattanooga later this Wednesday (3:00 p.m. ET, SEC Network+) before hosting Rider next Wednesday (7:00 p.m. ET, SEC Network+). Then it’s on to the 18-game SEC schedule starting on January 4th with Auburn at Stegeman Coliseum.
“Obviously a really good win for this program, for this current team. Really happy for our guys. Our guys have been through a lot of course in this past month or so,” White said after the game. “We’ve got a healthy team that’s worked really hard and made some improvements so who knows where this thing will be. Hopefully we can build upon it … You hope so. It certainly beats the alternative of learning from a loss. We’ve done that a couple of times already. It’s great to beat an ACC opponent, a program that’s at the level Notre Dame is. It’s a Mike Brey coached program, and a really good win for us as we continue to build. Probably just as important though, we got better. We preach every day growth, growth, growth and development. I liked a lot of what I saw out there. We’re continuing to improve which will give us a chance to be more competitive in the best league in College Basketball.”
