Georgia drops sixth straight as turnovers doom the Dawgs
The Georgia Bulldogs lost their sixth straight contest Wednesday night in an 84-65 blowout against the LSU Tigers. Kario Oquendo led Georgia in scoring for the fifth straight game with 26 points, while also leading the Bulldogs in rebounds with five. As a team, UGA finished the night with 10 assists, the same number that LSU’s Xavier Pinson had individually. That stark comparison says it all for the struggling Georgia Basketball program.
Despite leading 20-19 midway through the half, Georgia trailed 38-22 at the half. Just four days after allowing South Carolina to go on a 20-0 run, the Bulldogs allowed the Tigers to have a 17-0 run of their own. The Bulldogs’ last made field goal of the first half with 7:28 left to play, missing their last six attempts before heading into the locker room.
LSU’s full-court press got the best of the Dawgs, forcing Georgia to turn the ball over 15 times in the first half alone. That’s typically close to the number that the Bulldogs would finish with in a game. In this contest however, they turned it over 25 times, six more than their previous season-high. Of the nine Bulldogs that saw a minute of playing time, only one player, Dalen Ridgnal, managed to not turn the ball over.
After the game, Tom Crean briefly explained everything that went wrong for the Dawgs throughout the game.
“We have to attack the press better,” Crean put simply. “And we didn’t attack the press the way we practiced, by either beating it with the ball screen or getting it in the middle. We just didn’t do a good enough job of that, and we didn’t do a good enough job on the glass. And we missed some shots we made, we missed some opportunities to get the ball swung. A couple times, our guard play wasn’t what it needed to be. We missed some chances in the post-up. That’s all. We’ve just got to do a better job.”
In a 19-point loss like this, it’s very easy to overlook individual accomplishments. However, after just five points on seven field goal attempts in the first half, Oquendo scored 21 points in nine shot attempts in the second half alone.
Collectively, the Bulldogs found a lot of success offensively in the second half. After only managing 22 points on 5-21 shooting (4-14 from three), Georgia flipped the switch in the second, putting up 43 points on 15-24 shooting (4-9 from three).
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When Crean was asked about the message that he would give to the Georgia administration and fanbase, he spoke bluntly.
“Truthfully and truly, all I’m focused on is the daily process of trying to help this team get better. That’s all I’m focused on.”
Georgia is back in Athens this Saturday to take on the 12-14 Ole Miss Rebels, along with former Bulldog, Tye Fagan. The game will be broadcasted on SEC Network at 1:00 p.m. ET.
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