Vanderbilt: post mortem

A desperate team is a dangerous team, and Georgia was desperate last night.  Very few people, myself included, gave the Bulldogs a chance to win that game, and for good reason.  They hadn't beaten the Commodores in almost 5 years, and hadn't won in Nashville since 2006.

It wasn't a masterpiece, but there was more good than bad.  As usual, we'll start with the good:

• The refs were the only ones who could stop Kenny Gaines on Wednesday.  The charge call was terrible, and the subsequent block at the other end might have been clean, but was violent enough that it's going to get called.  Vanderbilt was fortunate he was on the bench for such a large portion of the first half, or things may have been even worse.  Hopefully this is a sign of things to come.
• Osahen Iduwe, Houston Kessler, and Taylor Echols deserve a ton of credit for the minutes they logged.  Echols, especially, has no conscience, and may force Fox to find a few more minutes for him.  He's now 3-5 from behind the arc this year.
• Marcus Thornton's offense early was key.  It continued the trend of Georgia starting games strong - a trend I could get used to.
• His defense on Damian Jones was fantastic as well.  Jones was frustrated all night, and it showed.  The Bulldogs made it clear from the outset that it wasn't going to be easy for him, and he responded with sloppy play.
• Gaines' defense on LaChance was excellent, too.  Almost all of the damage LaChance did was against someone else.  That made it all the more surprising that Gaines wasn't shadowing him in the last two minutes of the game.  Had he been, I suspect there would have been far less drama.
• Speaking of LaChance, we can look forward to him being quite the annoyance for the next 3 years.  The kid can play.
• The free throws, again, were a mixed bag.  Had the team not started out 5-12 the game would have looked a lot better.  However, they deserve a ton of credit for finishing 11-12, including a couple of huge 1-and-1 conversions from Charles Mann and J.J. Frazier.  As for Frazier's 6-10, I'm not going to worry about it.  Let's hope it was an anomaly.
• Georgia again gave up a lot of offensive rebounds, which is troubling.  They were also out-rebounded as a team.  So they've won the only SEC game in which that happened, and they've lost the two where they dominated on the boards.  Makes perfect sense.
• At some point, every good team learns to go for the throat.  Georgia is not there yet.  They've had opportunities in each conference game to do just that, and they've floundered.  Last game it was Thornton shooting with a ton of time on the shot clock.  This game it was Gaines dribbling the ball off of his foot instead of waiting to be fouled.  That it's veterans making these errors just adds to the concern.  The basketball IQ needs to go up in a hurry.

Georgia needed this one, and they found a way to get it.  All that means is the next one is even bigger.  For today, at least, enjoy the win against a team that has had our number for a long time.