COLUMBIA, SC – The University of Georgia men’s basketball team fell 83-59 in South Carolina on Wednesday night, in front of 3,156 fans at the Colonial Life Arena.
Freshman KD Johnson led Georgia (9-6, 2-6 SEC) with 14 points, while graduate Andrew Garcia had 12 points and five rebounds. The second year Sahvir Wheeler almost scored a double-double with nine points and nine rebounds, in addition to seven assists, the team record. Overall, the Bulldogs hit 31.8 percent of the field.
“The end result is the lack of shots that hinder us in defense,” said coach Tom Crean after the game. “We are quiet when we are not shooting, and it is a difficult night … We will have to do something different defensively because we are not on the ball or on the path we need as guards, and our big ones are not providing enough support when the ball is released. When we do that, we put ourselves in a position where we cannot recover as well. The repercussions were quite the same, but at the end of the day, the offensive boards they managed to turn into buckets and three. “
After South Carolina (4-5, 2-3 SEC) jumped into a quick lead, Georgia responded with a 12-2 run, consistently putting the ball in the paint, despite the initial foul problems for the graduate PJ Horne and sophomore Toumani Camara. Although the Bulldogs subsequently stayed more than three minutes without a field goal, a bad shot from both teams allowed Georgia to maintain a 17-13 lead in the sub-8 timeout.
Leaving the break, the Gamecocks started to connect from the outside, resuming the lead with a pair of 3 points. The scoring burst ended up growing to a 16-3 streak in South Carolina, extending its lead to double digits at the end of the semester. The Bulldogs managed to hold the Gamecocks without goals in the last 90 seconds of the period, with a pair of baskets from Tyron McMillan raising the score to 36-26 at halftime.
Georgia started reducing the deficit at the start of the second half, reducing the margin to six, but South Carolina’s 3-point shot helped to maintain its advantage. The Bulldogs once again went without goals for an extended period, spending more than five minutes without a field goal, with the Gamecocks’ advantage growing to 15 in the middle of the break.
While Georgia continued to struggle to score, South Carolina extended the lead to 31 points, the game record, with less than three minutes to go. A Garcia tray at the 3:29 mark finally broke a seven-minute streak without a field goal for the Bulldogs, who used Johnson’s final six points to narrow the final margin.
Georgia returns home for a fight against Ole Miss on Saturday, January 30 at the Stegeman Coliseum. The meeting with the rebels is scheduled for 6 pm and will be broadcast on the SEC Network.