Georgia basketball predicted to make the NCAA Tournament

Georgia basketball has a very difficult path to get through if they want to make the NCAA Tournament.

SEC Basketball Tournament - First Round
SEC Basketball Tournament - First Round | Carly Mackler/GettyImages

Georgia basketball is off to one of their best starts in program history. After their recent 73-68 win over Grand Canyon this past Saturday, the Bulldogs' record jumped to 9-1, which is their best start since the 2001-02 season.

And while that is extremely exciting, there is still a lot of work to be done to accomplish their goal of making the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2015. However, if the season ended today, ESPN bracketology expert Joe Lunardi would have Georgia in the NCAA Tournament field.

Georgia currently inside the NCAA Tournament field

According to Lunardi's latest NCAA Tournament projection, Georgia would earn an 8-seed in the NCAA Tournament. This would match them up with 9-seed Utah State in the first round with a potential showdown with 1-seed Iowa State looming in the second round of the tournament.

This prediction is nice and all, but at the end of the day the only thing that actually matters is if Georgia will make the tournament at the end of the season. And their path to do so is extremely difficult.

Lunardi has a whopping 13 teams from the SEC currently in his NCAA Tournament field. That number is unheard of and shows just how strong the league is top to bottom this season. The SEC also has eight teams ranked inside the latest edition of the AP Poll top 25, which includes four of the top six teams. Unfortunately for Mike White and UGA, they are not one of those eight teams.

Georgia has three easy games to finish out their non-conference slate in the month of December, but beginning Jan. 4 they have five straight ranked SEC opponents on their schedule. So we will all find out how good this team is as soon as SEC play begins next month.

But for now, Georgia fans can enjoy the fact that they have what appears to be a very strong basketball team that has a chance to make the NCAA Tournament for the first time in a decade.