Are you paying close attention? With a dominating home victory over the lowly South Carolina to complete their season sweep of the Gamecocks, Mike White's Georgia Bulldogs are almost certainly NCAA Tournament-bound. They are now 20-9 on the season and 8-8 in SEC play. It may have only been a Quad 3 victory for UGA, but there is a chance Georgia's NET rating will improve from 31 now.
Yes, this is the third season in a row that Georgia has eclipsed the 20-win threshold. With how strong their resume is and how deep the SEC has been this season, the Dawgs are effectively a shoo-in to make the field of 68. Although ESPN's Joe Lunardi may have put a bad omen on them in his latest Bracketology update last Friday, Georgia should be way better than one of the last four bye teams.
One of the biggest reasons why Georgia seems to be ascending at the right time is due to a smart, but difficult decision made by White. Frankly, it happened out of necessity. With Jeremiah Wilkinson missing a pair of games vs. Florida and at Oklahoma due to a nagging shoulder, he has gone from a starter to the team's new sixth man. Marcus Millender has started each of the last five games instead.
Georgia has gone 3-1 in its last four conference games since making the switch to its starting lineup.
Mike White has switched Jeremiah Wilkinson and Marcus Millender's roles
On the season, Wilkinson is averaging 17.7 points, 2.1 rebounds, and 1.9 assists per game in 25.7 minutes per contest. The only player averaging minutes this season for Georgia is backcourt glue guy Blue Cain with 28.0 per game. Millender ranks third on the team in minutes per game at 25.5. Simply put, White prefers to have at least one of these three backcourt stars on the court at any given time.
In the five games this season that Millender has started, Georgia is 3-2 in SEC play. He is averaging 11.4 points, 5.4 assists, and 2.4 rebounds per game in this slightly expanded role. Most importantly, he has been absolutely lethal from distance, connecting on 45.8 percent of his 3-point attempts. Millender has not missed a free-throw attempt in 10 tries since making this switch. He is thriving!
As far as Wilkinson is concerned, he is averaging 21.0 points, 2.3 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per game since becoming Georgia's sixth man. He is getting more buckets vs. the reserves than he was vs. the starters, while Millender is doing a fantastic job of distributing the basketball in his expanded role. This one decision has made the high-octane offense of Georgia's even harder for teams to defend.
In short, Wilkinson is scoring more than three more points per game since coming off the bench, without negatively impacting his distributing or rebounding. With Millender serving as the starter, he more than an assist per game better than he was coming off the bench, without his scoring and rebounding dipping at all. White has found a way to make Georgia more efficient in the backcourt.
It only looks like a combined three points and an assist better than before, but it is has been noticed.