Georgia basketball coined the “dark horse” in the SEC

Georgia basketball is gearing up to begin their season this Monday, Nov. 4 against Tennessee Tech. There is a lot of hope surrounding the Bulldogs this season after making a run to the NIT Final Four and bringing in multiple elite transfers and one of the best high school recruiting classes in the country.

However, that belief hasn’t traveled far outside of Athens just yet.

Two weeks ago the SEC preseason rankings were released, and Georgia shockingly found themselves at No. 12 in the standings. Many analysts thought this ranking made no sense, and pointed to how they thought Georgia will finish closer to the top of the standings than that.

But one analyst took it a step further recently, labeling Georgia a “dark horse” in the SEC.

Dark horse SEC team

John Fanta with Fox Sports called Georgia the dark horse in the SEC after the Bulldogs’ most recent exhibition win earlier this week. The Bulldogs dominated a power five team in UCF 114-76, so it really isn’t surprising to see some people turning into believers.

Five-star freshman Asa Newell continued to live up to the hype, scoring 19 points and grabbing seven rebounds in this game. But whenever UGA scores 114 points, it’s pretty safe to assume every player lived up to the hype offensively.

Georgia hasn’t made the NCAA Tournament since 2015, but this year is looking like their best chance to do so. Mike White has the program trending in the right direction, so now it’s just a matter of putting it all together for an entire season.

Four of Georgia’s first five games are against group of five programs, with the fifth game coming against Georgia Tech. So if Georgia wants to seriously contend for an NCAA Tournament appearance, these are games they need to win.

But if UGA stays as dominant on offense as they’ve been so far, they should have no problems doing just that.