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Georgia trying to stay focused on one-game at a time amidst tough stretch

Palmber-Thombsby:Palmer Thombs•02/26/24•

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Georgia Basketball (8)
Kari Hodges / UGA Sports Communications

ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia Basketball has just five guaranteed games left this season, and the Bulldogs are facing tough realities. Unless a 2008-like miracle happens, the NCAA Tournament is probably out of the picture for UGA, and even the NIT is no guarantee. That’s not deterring the effort of this team however with a strong desire to play things out and finish the right way.

“I’m just not focused on the postseason,” Georgia head coach Mike White said after Saturday’s loss to Auburn. “I’m focused on LSU, and really breaking this film down as quickly as possible. Take three or four bullets that we can take that might help us Tuesday night.”

“We don’t have as many wins as we like. We’re a more competitive, better basketball team obviously,” he added. “Better than we were early and better than we were last year. We are building and we’re better but we want results though. We got to get better.”

Saturday saw Georgia drop its seventh game in the last eight outings. It guaranteed another year without a winning season in the SEC, something UGA hasn’t had since 2015-16, and exposed some of the flaws this year’s team has. While playing against one of the nation’s top squads, it was easy to see that the Bulldogs were overmatched – and have been throughout much of their SEC slate.

Trying to pick up a few more wins, needing one to at least match last season’s 16-16 mark overall and six wins in the SEC, Georgia has an opportunity ahead of it, hitting the road to LSU. The Bulldogs won the previous meeting between the two teams 68-66 in Athens thanks to a go-ahead bucket by Russel Tchewa with just 2.3 seconds to go, but the Tigers have been able to squeak out a couple of marquee wins. In the 10 days prior to hosting Georgia on Tuesday, LSU has wins over a pair of teams currently in the top-25: No. 18 South Carolina and No. 16 Kentucky.

As for what the goals are the rest of the way, White remained consistent in his messaging. He isn’t looking beyond the next game, and his players aren’t focused on the future either.

“Have a great film session and practice tomorrow. That’s it,” White said. “I talk to our guys all the time about how if you’re too focused on the result, sometimes you can’t handle that as young people as well as just staying in the moment. I also talk about getting some stops early, getting in an offensive rhythm, evaluating the basketball, following the scout report, and hopefully in Baton Rouge midway through the second half, we’ll get a chance to steal one on the road.”

“We’ve got a quick turnaround. We can’t dwell on this loss.  We have to move on to LSU,” Silas Demary added. “They’re a good team. They just got two big-time wins. They just beat Kentucky. They beat South Carolina at South Carolina. They have some momentum, but we just want to go in there and try to gain some confidence going into that game. Even though we just took a loss we’re just going to get back to the drawing board tomorrow … Definitely looking forward to the future but I also just want to stay with the team we have now. We want to look towards the future but we also have to stay in the present moment.”

Tip time for Georgia and LSU at Pete Maravich Assembly Center is set for Tuesday at 7:00 p.m. ET on the SEC Network.

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