Georgia basketball: The simple takeaway from Ole Miss loss
Georgia basketball fell to Ole Miss on Saturday 85-66 in another game where the Dawgs couldn’t get the stops on defense.
The team didn’t look focused throughout the game, and it’s understandable why with all the news going on within the program this week.
With one of the assistant coaches getting suspended to rumors surrounding head coach Tom Crean dropping on Friday night — it looked like all that stuff weighed heavy on the guys.
Georgia basketball loses their seventh straight SEC loss.
The Dawgs shot 48% from the floor, 30% from the arc, and 81% from the free-throw line, but the Rebels shot 55.9% from the field, 42.9% from the 3-point line and 90.9% from the foul line.
This matchup was just odd from start to finish because Georgia played well. The Dawgs won the rebound battle, scored 40 points in the paint and saw 20 points from their bench.
However, Ole Miss scored 20 points off the Dawgs’ 13 turnovers, which were huge.
Braelen Bridges led the Dawgs with 17 points, Kario Oquendo recorded 14 points, and Jabri Abdur-Rahim contributed 11.
Georgia just couldn’t get the stops they needed down the stretch. It was a close ballgame in the first half as the Rebels led 42-38 at halftime.
The Dawgs were grabbing rebounds, doing a great job putting up points and playing hard. After halftime, it just seemed to fall flat.
However, the biggest takeaway from this game was defense once again. Even with the Dawgs winning the rebound battle, they coughed it up far too much and couldn’t prevent the Rebels from making nine three-pointers.
It’s hard to win a game when a team shoots 55.9% from the floor, and your team is putting similar numbers up but not getting any stops.
Ole Miss made the shots they needed to, and Georgia couldn’t develop a defensive scheme that worked. The Rebels were missing their top two shooters for the game and still had four guys score 10-plus points and almost had three of the four finish with 20-points.
Georgia has to find a way to get this defense rolling because the offense isn’t playing badly. It isn’t that simple, but sometimes it feels like it should be because if the defense improves with these offensive numbers, imagine what it will do for the team’s success.
Next. Georgia football: A quick look at the DB room for 2022. dark
Once the defense gets together, this group can find success because when they can play solid, get defensive stops and draw fouls like they need to, this team can beat anyone. Yes, I said anyone.