Georgia Bulldogs: Do You Believe in Miracles?
By W. M. Lawson
The Georgia Bulldogs Men’s Basketball team’s dream of dancing is on life support, and they will need to win the remainder of their games to have a shot at the NCAA Tournament.
Last Saturday, the Georgia Bulldogs Men’s Basketball team fought hard, only to fall, again, in the last minute of play. The Dawgs (15-12) scrapped and scraped against a loaded Kentucky Wildcats team, with J.J. Frazier dropping 35 points on 11 of 22 shooting from the field, but wound up singing that lonesome song of “what could’ve been”. To make matters worse, the Dawgs’ best player, Yante Maten, went down with a sprained knee in the first few minutes, and looks to be out for the remainder of the regular season. In sum: Not good.
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If you, fair reader, need a rehashing of previous circumspection, you can find it here and here. That said, lots of media types seem to be throwing dirt on UGA’s chances of dances due to the Kentucky loss. I’m not so sure that this is accurate. The Maten injury probably leads to that conclusion for some, and understandably so, but it isn’t a certainty. As we say in the south, “there is still some meat on that bone” for the Dawgs.
The four regular season games left to be played will be a tough slog for Georgia. Specifically, the road games at Alabama and Arkansas will be tough tests, especially without the injured Maten. Home contests against LSU and Auburn seem to be less daunting, but are by no rational calculations guaranteed wins. Without a doubt, though, Georgia has to win all of them to even get the chance for a late season miracle. One loss in any of these games, and UGA might not even make the NIT. It’s that close between dancing and dying in 2016-2017. But they play games for a reason, and it isn’t unreasonable to think that Georgia could win out.
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Are these words on the optimistic side? Are these words seemingly out of step with where most media hold Georgia’s chances of post-season play? Yes. But I was in the Georgia Dome in 2008 when that tornado hit. We witnessed a miracle those following days, with the Dawgs playing inspired and involved basketball. Georgia still has a chance to play on the big stage in March, but that begins with their march to Alabama Thursday night. And if those young men can marshal the muster to win four games in a row, they will then have to do damage in Nashville. The kind of damage that the tornado did to our now deceased Georgia Dome.