Georgia Basketball: Bulldogs Handily Defeat Florida Atlantic
The Georgia basketball team had a convincing victory over the Florida Atlantic Owls.
Georgia defeated Florida Atlantic University 74 – 61 on the strength of 17 points from senior forward Marcus Thornton and 15 points from junior guard Kenny Gaines.
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Thornton also grabbed 12 rebounds for his third career double-double and swatted a career high five blocks just for good measure. Senior forward Nemanja Djurisic was the number two rebound man for the Dawgs with 10, tossed in eight points, and earned a career high 8 assists. At the small forward spot, Sophomore Juwan Parker led the Bulldogs in minutes played with 30 and scored six points while claiming five rebounds.
It was the third consecutive victory for the Bulldogs after a season opening loss at Georgia Tech.
“This year, [Marcus] has confidence in his body and he has confidence in his game, and now he can be really aggressive,” Georgia head coach Mark Fox told Georgiadogs.com. “He’s playing hard and playing like a senior and I am really happy for him.”
Georgia’s starting five of Thornton, Djurisic, Parker, Gaines and junior point guard Charles Mann appears to be set, at least for now. Mann used 27 minutes of playing time to contribute eight points including 4 – 4 on free throws. However, his 2 – 10 shooting from the field and only three assists and a steal against four turnovers is not winning play.
In contrast, point guard J. J. Frazier used 19 minutes to score nine with two assists, two turnovers and two steals while hauling in three rebounds. Yante Maten also came off the bench early and added six points, five rebounds and a block.
Both teams started hot offensively with the visiting owls leading for the first 10 minutes of play. Georgia took the lead in the first half at the 10 minute mark on a Thornton free throw and the Dawgs never trailed again. Georgia eventually led by 18 in the second half with 3:22 to play.
“It’s good to win,” Coach Fox said. “I was pleased with a lot of things that we did, but I don’t think we played as well as we did the other night. It’s good to have errors and to learn from them. I think today was a good experience for our team against a well-coached team and a team that’s going to win their share of games. There are a lot of things we can learn from tonight’s game to help us get better. For instance, we had a lot of offensive fouls that we need to figure out how to fix. But, overall good game and good experience and now we will move on.
For Florida Atlantic, Sophomore Marquan Botley scored a career 20, Jackson Trapp tied a career high with 15 points, and Kelvin Penn and Justin Massey score 11. The game was a homecoming for Florida Atlantic’s C. J. Turman. The highly recruited freshmen center from Madison, Ga, scored 2 and played 19 minutes.
Georgia will travel to New York this week to participate in the NIT Season Tip-Off in Madison Square Garden. The Bulldogs will open the week playing Gonzaga Wednesday at 9:30 p.m. ET. The game will air on ESPN 2.