'Grinded out' win important for Georgia, NCAA Tournament hopes

ATHENS, Ga. — Georgia Basketball was once again on the right side of a close one Wednesday night, winning 68-66 over LSU. The Tigers took the lead with 17.4 seconds to go before the Bulldogs responded with a Russel Tchewa and-one.

It was emotional. It was nerve wracking. It was the kind of game that Georgia likely would’ve lost in season’s past, but not these Bulldogs. Mike White has seen their resiliency time and time again this season, and it’s a large part of the reason why they’re at 4-2 in SEC play and firmly in contention for a spot in the NCAA Tournament with a month and a half to go before Selection Sunday.

“If you’re going to be in the conversation to play some postseason there’s going to be a handful of those – for a team like us,” White said postgame. “If you’re fortunate enough to get over the hump and win some or all of those, you give yourself a better chance. We’ll have more of those, and I’m sure LSU will as well.”

For Tchewa and the Bulldogs, the last minute was all about keeping calm. They had led by just a single score since the two-minute mark and were holding on by just a thread, not having hit a field goal of their own in almost 4:00. Tchewa blocked a shot out of bounds to stave off LSU’s first attempt to tie or take the lead, but the Tigers’ leading scorer on the night Jalen Cook made a layup and was fouled with 17.4 to go. After the free throw, LSU had its first lead of the second half.

“We just said stay ready, poised, not stunned faces,” Tchewa said of the Bulldog message after LSU took the lead. “Don’t worry about anything, just the next play.”

It was a lead that didn’t last for long though. White opted not to take a timeout, feeling confident about the player he had on the floor to get the desired look. The play called for Justin Hill to drive to the basket for a layup with potential to get fouled. It’s a situation he has executed in multiple times throughout his Georgia career – including last season against LSU. However, the Tigers defense forced Hill to kick it out to Jabri Abdur-Rahim for an open 3-pointer. He missed, but Tchewa was there for the rebound and put back.

“After every shot, I’m just going to the glass. I’m just doing what I’m doing every day in practice. I did my job. Went to the glass, tried to get a rebound, put back or kick it out,” Tchewa said about his game-winner.

“It’s nice to see the big fella with a game winner,” White added. “Those other guys have had their opportunities, especially coming off a game — I want to say he held nine seals for lay-ups at Kentucky. He tried to do it throughout the game today as well. He’s really buying into helping his teammates be better, so it’s nice to see him benefit a little bit as well.”

Tchewa and his teammates felt prepared for that moment. As he said, it was no different than practice. Silas Demary even added that situations like the one that presented itself against LSU are ones they work on each and every day.

“Coach White has a lot of confidence in us because we work on it. He’s instilling the confidence in us every day about it. When the moment comes, we show up … Game isn’t over, we’re still in it. We work on that every day, play 4:00 games,” Demary added. “Yesterday we were working on with 15 seconds left, coming up with scenarios and how we’re going to win. How are we going to guard? What play are we going to run? I feel like just working on that in practice, it helped us a lot.”

“I just saw fight, man,” he put it simply. “We wanted to win. The will to win, that’s what I saw.”

As White said, to play in the postseason, there’s still plenty of work to be done. His players know that, and they believe that games like Wednesday’s will help them get there – and help them be ready for that stage should they get there. White also knows what it takes to get there though having made the NCAA Tournament four times in six possible seasons (2020 COVID-cancelled tournament excluded) and feels confident that this Georgia team has the potential to do so with the resiliency and resolve they’ve already shown.

“Yeah. Yeah, definitely,” White said when asked whether his best Florida teams ‘grinded’ wins out like the one Georgia did on Wednesday. “You know, again, in order to be in the conversation, we’ve got to win a lot more, but it’s certainly better than the alternative. It’s not going to be easy in this league … We had two teams just fight it out. We can say ugly and grind it and all that stuff, but really I probably should say make the point more that you had 10 guys out there on the court for 40 minutes that were just throwing haymakers. It was a high-level game of intensity. I know everybody that played in that game’s going to be tired and sleep well and need some rest because we’ve both got quick turnarounds. It was a competitive, high-level game.”

“I know everyone is sick of me using the word response and our team probably is as well, but just to come back and have that emotional response, show resiliency, come the last two days and practice like we did,” he added about rebounding from a loss to Kentucky over the weekend. “The shootaround today was really sharp. You can’t do it in this league, but I’m proud of these guys. It’s against human nature. Human nature is to pout a little bit. We were down significantly. But that hasn’t been the case. That was the first time for this team, and we responded well. We responded well in this game, too, holding the lead this whole game, losing it late, and going to make a play. This team – we’ve got room for growth, we’ve got a ways to go, but opportunities to win more. Hopefully, we continue to do that. I’ll be shocked that when the ball stops bouncing for this team that it was a resilient group all year.”

The Bulldogs are back in action over the weekend with a trip to Florida. It’s the third road game in four outings after playing at South Carolina and Kentucky last week.

Like Georgia (14-5, 4-2 SEC), Florida (13-6, 3-3 SEC) is coming off of a Wednesday night win, beating Mississippi State 79-70. Tip time for Saturday at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center is set for 12:00 p.m. ET on ESPN2.