Since when did taking on a .500 team feel so important? There is no other way around it. This is the game that may decide if Mike White's Georgia Bulldogs will make the NCAA Tournament or not. After the latest Bracketology update, ESPN's Joe Lunardi has UGA settled in quite nicely as a No. 10 seed. Win or lose, they have been the highest-rated No. 10 seed for quite some time. That could all change.
According to FanDuel Sportsbook, Oklahoma will be laying 1.5 points to visiting Georgia on Saturday afternoon. The associated moneylines are Oklahoma -120 and Georgia even money at +100. The projected point total is 164.5 combined points. This suggests a final score of something along the lines of Oklahoma 83, Georgia 81.5. Based on NET rating, this may be UGA's most important one left.
Yes, this road date at Oklahoma is going down as a Quad 1 game for UGA. The Bulldogs have a NET rating of 35, while Oklahoma is at 73. While you need to be playing a top-30 opponent at home to get a Quad 1 game, if you play a top-75 opponent as a visitor, that still counts. While Georgia is 17-7 (5-6) on the season, Oklahoma is the worst team in the SEC at 12-12 (2-9). Georgia has to win this game...
Let's unpack the significance of this and why a win over OU likely means UGA is tournament-bound.
Georgia pretty much needs to beat Oklahoma to secure NCAA berth
Looking ahead to what Georgia has left on its schedule, the Bulldogs have four more Quad 1 games, two more Quad 2 games, and one more Quad 3 game. The road date at Oklahoma is by far and away the easiest Quad 1 game UGA has left to play. The others will be at Kentucky, at Vanderbilt, and home vs. Alabama. Georgia could pull off the upset in one of those games, but it is certainly dropping two.
While the second game vs. Texas will be tough, this time it will be at home. The Longhorns are the much tougher opponent over Oklahoma, but it will go down as a Quad 2 game. As for the home game vs. South Carolina and the regular-season finale at Mississippi State. Georgia is much better team than both of them. A loss to either of them will be devastating to the Bulldogs' tournament chances...
So how significant is the OU game? Very much so. A win on the road in Norman would improve UGA to 4-5 in Quad 1 games. If Oklahoma drops down to Quad 2 in defeat, UGA may need to hope for Auburn to win as many games as it can the rest of the way for that to go back to being a Quad 1 home victory for Georgia. Either way, beating a top-75 team on the road is a big deal. Georgia must take advantage.
Overall, the point spread only being 1.5 points between Georgia and Oklahoma tells us that this one might go down to the wire. Oklahoma did pull off its best victory over the season last weekend by upsetting Vanderbilt in Nashville. They nearly blew it, but put together too big of a deficit for the Commodores to overcome. If Georgia beats Oklahoma, it gets them to 18-6 and likely in the tourney.
For now, things could be getting really dicey if Georgia does not beat a team it is 38 spots better than.