Georgia gets marquee matchup set for basketball season opener
Georgia Basketball’s schedule is starting to come together for 2023-24. According to Jon Rothstein of CBS Sports, the Bulldogs will open the season November 6th in Las Vegas against Oregon in a multi-team event at T-Mobile Arena that also features USC and Kansas State.
The Ducks are coming off of a 21-15 season in 2022-23 where they went 12-8 in Pac-12 play. Oregon missed out on a bid to the NCAA Tournament but did qualify for the NIT, winning two games before falling to Wisconsin in the quarterfinals. Oregon comes in at No. 37 in Rothstein’s ranking of the top teams in the country, constantly updating his list based on returnees, departures and newcomers announced.
Adding to the intrigue of Georgia-Oregon is the fact that former Georgia guard Kario Oquendo announced his transfer to Eugene earlier this year. After spending two seasons in Athens, one under the direction of Tom Crean and the other in the first year of the Mike White era, Oquendo entered the transfer portal and decided to leave.
Oquendo was Georgia’s second leading scorer in 2022-23 and the team-leader the year before. In 60 career contests for the Bulldogs, Oquendo finished in double-figures 43 times including at least 20 in each season. Ten times did he hit the 20-point mark in 2021-22 followed by only doing so four times this past season.
Ironically, the event in Las Vegas isn’t the only time Georgia and Kansas State will play in the same city. The Bulldogs and Wildcats make up half of the field for the 2023 Baha Mar Bahamas Hoops Championships alongside Miami and Providence.
Kansas State, Providence and Miami all made the NCAA Tournament last season with the Hurricanes advancing to the Final Four. Matchups for that event have yet to be announced.
Other reported matchups include North Florida (date TBD) and Alabama A&M (December 30th). Georgia is also expected to play Wake Forest as a part of a home-and-home agreement that began last season as well as its annual rivalry against Georgia Tech.
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Georgia’s roster has seen quite a bit of turnover this offseason after going 16-16 last year. The Bulldogs signed nine new players for 2023-24 including seven that decided to come aboard this offseason.
Georgia picked up RJ Melendez (Illinois), Jalen DeLoach (VCU), Russel Tchewa (South Florida), Noah Thomasson (Niagara) and RJ Sunahara (Nova Southeastern) out of the transfer portal. Sunahara seems to be the biggest addition from the portal as the reigning Division II Player of the Year, but don’t count out possible contributions from Melendez as a shooter, DeLoach and Tchewa as big men and Thomasson as a scorer.
Meanwhile, Mari Jordan and Dylan James signed last November from the high school ranks before Blue Cain and Silas Demary joined Georgia’s Class of 2023 this spring. Three of the four rank in the top 100 according to the On3 Industry Ranking with all four having at least one of the major recruiting services ranking them within the top 100 including Cain, a consensus top-100 player.
Returnees from the team include Jabri Abdur-Rahim, Frank Anselem-Ibe, Justin Hill and Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe. Georgia’s 10-win year-over-year improvement ranked second-best across all Power Five programs in the country.
