Ole Miss: post mortem

It's barely worth pointing out, but if anything resembling that Georgia team had shown up in Athens against South Carolina and Auburn, both would have been run out of town.

I am something like 0-5 in my predictions of late, and I'm not the least bit embarrassed.  Who can claim to understand this team?  The closest I can come to explaining things is this:  when their back is against the wall, this team responds, and when it's not, they're complacent.

You and I both knew Georgia needed another road win to feel good about their chances on Selection Sunday.  Don't think the team didn't know that as well.  The question is quickly becoming how to engage them when they feel like their season is not on the line...something Mark Fox might have to address as soon as this coming Saturday.

I admit I wasn't able to focus 100% of my attention on the game last night, so help me out if I missed anything:

• Put simply, if Gaines, Thornton, Djurisic, and Mann combine for 67 points, Georgia is going to win 9 out of 10 times.  This was the best we've seen these guys play as a unit in a month, so yeah, maybe they are getting a little healthier.
• I continue to believe that Gaines, in particular, has been the missing ingredient.  He's a rhythm shooter, and not having a healthy Marcus Thornton may have affected him more than anything.  However, we also saw some aggression out of him last night that has been lacking (boy did I want him to dunk that ball on the break).
• And one more thing about Gaines - his defense continues to be on point.  Stefan Moody - one of the hottest players in the conference - was 2/11 from behind the 3-point line, and it's not because he just had an "off night."  Georgia hit a lot of threes last night because they took good shots.  Moody missed a lot of threes because he was forced to take bad ones.
• Speaking of the 3-point shot, watching Ole Miss can be a bit painful.  All they want to do is jack up threes, and last night they hit just enough of them to avoid being run out of their own building.  It's not particularly fun to watch, and it's why I've long believed that moving the 3-point line back to where the NBA has it would help increase scoring.  It might stop guys like Martavious Newby (career 27%) from hoisting three of them on a night where Ole Miss really could have used him in the paint.
• Cameron Forte is starting to do some real work on the glass.  I like that.  I still wish Fox could convince him to stop trying to handle the ball, though.
• Tough night for Yante Maten from a foul standpoint, but I want to point out that he's made 15 of his last 19 free throw attempts.  That's worth commending.
• In fact, it was another solid night from the line for the whole team.  And don't look now, but Charles Mann is shooting > 80% from the stripe since the Tennessee game.
• Marcus Thornton should have a green light on shooting that 3-pointer from the top of the key.  He's developed that into a nice weapon.
• Did anyone doubt that Ole Miss was going to come back and make a game of it?  Georgia can turn a 10-point lead into a 2-point lead as efficiently as any team in the country.

Does this Missouri game look like a trap game, or what?  If Georgia decides they have time to feel good about themselves, or if they decide they can afford to look ahead to Kentucky, they will get beat.  Fox needs to have these guys locked in.  Time to finish the drill.