The Georgia Basketball team crashed out of the NIT with a whimper on Wednesday:
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In what has been a rough 2017, the Georgia Basketball team might have unfortunately saved the worst for last. They lost to the Belmont Bruins 78-69 to exit the NIT in the first round. With no Yante Maten or Juwan Parker, UGA just couldn’t score the points they needed and lost to a Belmont team that made 14 3-pointers.
Belmont is no pushover and they only lost 6 games this season, but it’s tough to see UGA lose a game so easily to a team from the Ohio East conference.
J.J Fraizer tried his best in what would be his final game as a bulldogs but despite scoring 29 points, he was unable to lead the team to victory. He was relatively inefficient, making 9 of 22 shots but he did hit 11 of 12 free throws that brought up his scoring. It was a sad way to go for a player who has meant so much to the UGA basketball program the past 4 years.
It was a disappointing end to a rather disappointing season. With J.J. Fraizer and Yante Maten both making the all SEC team this year, UGA had more talent than it has in several years. Unfortunately, that talent didn’t translate into victories and UGA was unable to get 1 victory against a top 50 team this year.
It didn’t help that Mark Fox had to do without Maten for much of the final month of the season after an unfortunate knee injury. A setback after the loss to Kentucky in the SEC tournament led to Maten being out again and without him, the team again struggled.
What’s next:
Another off season of hand-wringing and wondering for Georgia basketball fans. UGA should be bringing back a good deal of talent next year and will be adding a highly touted recruit in Rayshaun Hammonds.
Another disappointing end to the season likely means that head coach Mark Fox really has to have a good year in 2018. The talent will be there and with four of the past three seasons all ending like this, it’s going to be crucial for him to make next year a success.