Minnesota: post mortem

Stop me if you've heard this before.  Georgia goes down big early, but fights valiantly and comes up just short in the end.

Quite frankly, I'm tired of this, and so are you.  That was not a very good Minnesota team that Georgia just lost to, and while the season is not over, UGA's tournament hopes already look pretty bleak.  The SEC, to put it nicely, is not very good, which means Georgia probably needs 9 non-conference wins paired with at least 12 conference wins to have any chance.  That means there is no longer any room for error.  They have to run off 6 straight wins heading into conference play.  Based on what we saw tonight, that seems unlikely.

For some reason, no box score is available at the moment, but here are a few more thoughts:

• J.J. Frazier is the best point guard on the team.  He penetrates, he dishes, and he can shoot.  Mann had a nice game against Gonzaga, but Frazier should be starting.
• Kenny Gaines needs to break out of this funk, and fast.  The lack of any 3-point threat is just killing Georgia right now.
• Minnesota, on the other hand, shot quite well from the 3-point line, but many of their looks were completely uncontested.  Maten and Thornton got caught in no-man's land on the baseline again and again.
• It wasn't all bad for Maten, though, who scored 12 points in a nice first half.  He really kept Georgia from being run out of the building.
• In the end, Georgia just invented yet another way to lose a game in which they were probably the better team.  Instead of poor shooting or missed free throws, it was turnovers.  If this game is played ten times, Georgia probably wins 8, and you know what that means?  Absolutely nothing.  When you turn it over 14 times in one half, you lose, and a 4 point loss is the same as a 40 point loss.
• Lord, let that be the last we hear from Bob Knight all season.  He somehow made a painful loss that much more unbearable.

After all Mark Fox's talk of how veteran his team finally is, and how important November is, Georgia has lost two games they should have won thanks to an ongoing refusal to play the first 10 minutes of the contest.  Imagine how differently we'd be feeling sitting here at 5-1.

The talent is there to get to the tournament, but the margin for error is now razor thin.  Next up is Chattanooga, and if you think that's a get-well game, think again.  They've already played Wisconsin and Butler, so they won't be scared.  Fox has three days to do some serious soul searching and light a fire under his team.  If they don't start playing up to their potential, his job is in serious jeopardy.