Georgia Bulldogs Take Care of Tigers in Season Finale
By Keith Holt
The Georgia Bulldogs took care of business in their regular season finale, avenged a loss, and served a bit of notice!
In a tense game that came down to the last second, the Georgia Bulldogs pulled out scrappy 64-61 win against Auburn. The Dawgs avenged an earlier season loss to the Tigers and beat them on their Senior Night in front of a sold out crowd in Auburn, AL.
Georgia Bulldogs
Mark Fox’s team is has its 20th win of the season, and with this win set a UGA record with 6 road wins for the season. The Georgia Bulldogs now lead the all-time series against Auburn 91-90.
The Dawgs were able to pull out the victory even without guard Kenny Gaines, who suffered an injury during practice on Thursday. Winning without Gaines was a struggle of course, but the scrappy Bulldogs got the victory by a slim margin to finish the SEC season 11-7.
The game started off slowly for UGA as they had a scoreless 7 minutes early in the 1st half, but the game never completely got away from the Bulldogs. They appeared a little rattled at times by the sold out Auburn crowd, but rallied when it counted.
Neither team ever established a big lead, and Georgia was able to take the 31-28 advantage into the intermission off a J.J. Frazier 3 pointer with 24 seconds left in the session.
Although the Bulldogs took advantage of Auburn on the glass with a 18-10 rebounding advantage, they struggled against the Tigers in other areas during the 1st half, mostly notably giving up 10 turnovers.
This allowed Auburn to stay within range, but the Bulldogs got a strong opening period from forward Nemanja Djurisic, who led all scorers with 11 points in the first half.
The 2nd half started off similar to the 1st with a back and forth game between the two teams, and overall the game saw 13 ties and 8 lead changes.
The Bulldogs got into a little trouble as SEC leading scorer KT Harrell knocked down some big baskets for Auburn, but our Georgia Bulldogs were not to be undone as they kept their composure, led by guards Charles Mann and J.J. Frazier hitting timely buckets down the stretch.
In the end, the game was iced on 2 free throws by Frazier with 5 seconds left in the game.
In all, the Bulldogs committed a disappointing 17 turnovers, but also benefited from Auburn’s struggles shooting from the field and the free throw line. By contrast, the Bulldogs’ sharp 19-21 from the charity stripe and a 34-20 rebounding advantage allowed the Bulldogs to hold off the Tigers on the road.
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It’s also notable that Georgia had 3 players to score in double figures, led by J.J. Frazier’s 16 points and Charles Mann’s 15. Forward Nemanja Djurisic also added 14 points and 8 rebounds for UGA.
Auburn saw a strong game from guard K.T. Harrell who led all scorers with 24 points for the game and got 11 points each from both forward Cinmeon Bowers and guard K.C. Ross-Miller.
Next up for Georgia is the SEC Conference Tournament where the Dawgs will be at least a 6th seed but could end up with a coveted double bye with an Ole Miss loss. Check back for our preview of the SEC Tournament.