Game time announced for Georgia's NCAA Tournament opener
Georgia has a time and place for its first NCAA Tournament game since 2015. The Bulldogs will open with Gonzaga at approximately at 4:35 p.m. on Thursday in Witchita. The game will air on TBS.
The Bulldogs earned a No. 9 seed after finishing out the season at 20-12. Gonzaga comes in as the No. 8 seed after a 25-5 season that concluded with them winning the West Coast Conference Tournament Championship last week.
Georgia’s late-season surge has the Bulldogs feeling excited about their opportunity. Georgia was bounced from the SEC Tournament in the first round by Oklahoma but has kept their spirits high and has high hopes for their chances in the NCAA Tournament after facing the grueling SEC Conference schedule. The SEC landed 14 teams in the NCAA Tournament field.
“(It’s a) great accomplishment for our program and this team,” Georgia head coach Mike White said per a statement from UGA on Sunday evening. “Georgia is dancing. We’ve got more basketball ahead of us, so it’s a great day. A great day for the SEC of course, a historic day for our league. We’re fired up and ready to get to work.”
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Georgia leaning on culture
White feels Georgia’s culture has put them here. Georgia struggled in a run of four games in SEC play that had them projected outside of the tournament field. They rallied over the last month to fight their way into the tournament. White feels it begins with the people in the building.
“Some of it is recruiting and some of it is the development not necessarily the basketball development but the off-the-court development, the personal development and growth,” White said after the Bulldogs’ win over Vanderbilt two weeks ago. “For instance, those three sophomores, they’re totally different kids than they were as freshmen. They’ve grown up a lot. The continuity with those guys has helped us a lot. Then you add a guy like RJ Godfrey who went to the Elite Eight last year and is about all the right stuff. Then you have a special freshman Asa Newell who is also about the right stuff. Asa is about his future and maximizing his potential, but he’s also about Tyrin Lawrence and Dakota Laffew and then you bring those guys back that are high character guys.”
