Will Georgia win? A decision tree...

Is the opponent's RPI in the top 40?
No, Georgia will not win.

Is the opponent's RPI between 40 and 150?
Georgia might win.

Is the opponent's RPI worse than 150?
Yes, Georgia will win.

This has all become so predictable, I'm not entirely sure why I watch the games at this point...

The Situation

Sorry I never got a post mortem up for the LSU game.  In short: Ben Simmons is legit, and he's getting the star treatment from the officials, Johnny Jones it not legit and squandered an opportunity to squash the Bulldogs, J.J. Frazier is a gamer, and Mark Fox needs to go back to the drawing board on the offensive side of the ball.

The Numbers

CBSSports RPI:  75

ESPN BPI:  54
RPIForecast.com:  75

CBS Bracketology:  Out

ESPN Bracketology:   N/A

 
The Resume

Good Wins:  Georgia Tech, Clemson, Arkansas

Bad Losses:  None

The Schedule

Potential Top 50 Wins:  @Baylor, South Carolina, @Kentucky, Florida, @Vanderbilt, @South Carolina, Alabama

Potential Bad Losses:  Auburn, @Mississippi State, @Auburn, Ole Miss

What It All Means

Georgia is not going to the NCAA Tournament.

No, I can't state that as fact.  They're not mathematically eliminated...in fact, in an automatic berth conference, teams rarely are (I'm looking at you, Missouri).

However, nothing I've seen leads me to believe that Georgia can win enough games to get into the dance.  That's ironic considering just how close they've been.  Hit one more free throw and get a goaltending call and Georgia is sitting squarely on the bubble.  Neither of those things happened, though, nor could the Bulldogs close out a sure win in Oxford or complete a miracle comeback in Baton Rouge.  It all adds up to a team that, at best, will be hoping for an NIT berth in March.

The three "good" wins on Georgia's resume are barely that...Clemson is close to falling back out of the top 100.  The lack of bad losses is admirable, but not enough to excite the committee.  There are plenty of chances, of course.  Eight more wins gets Georgia in the conversation and any nine punches their ticket.  I just don't see a team poised to finish 9-2, especially with the upcoming schedule.  Do you?

Arkansas: post mortem

That was fun, right?  Any complaints that Georgia didn't play particularly well (they didn't), the free throw shooting was awful (it was), and the fans were only there for Kirby Smart (maybe) are noted.  But sometimes, when two equally mediocre teams lace it up, what you get is a fun, close game, and that's what we saw Saturday night:

• I don't suffer from migraines, but my wife does.  If her experiences with them are any indication, J.J. Frazier was nothing short of heroic on Saturday night.  He's what we call a DGD around these parts.
• Yante Maten can't touch the ball on every possession (can he?), but he needed to get more than 13 shots.  Especially with Kingsley on the bench the whole first half (his second foul may have been the biggest play of the game), Maten could have - and often did - have his way.  17 points, 12 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 blocks, and 0 turnovers is a whale of a game.
• I think Mark Fox is realizing he doesn't have the depth he initially thought he would.  Some of that may be because a few guys haven't gotten enough minutes to develop, but I'll leave that for another time.  J.J. Frazier, Charles Mann, Kenny Gaines, and Yante Maten all played at least 35 minutes.
• In fact, until I looked at the box score I didn't realize Georgia's bench only scored 2 points.  That's not great...
• Houston Kessler played pretty well again.  Even if I don't agree with it, I can see why Fox is so tempted to give him minutes over some other guys.
• I still wish we'd see a lot more of E'Torrion Wilridge, though...
• Interesting game for Dusty Hannahs.  He was the only reason Arkansas was even in the game, and he's a big reason the Razorbacks lost in the end.
• I still haven't watched the replay, but that lane violation on Hannahs was a gutsy call by the officials (Dusty loudly compared the call to cow excrement as he went to the bench).  That late in the game those things normally get overlooked unless they're blatant.  Was it that blatant?
• That first play in OT was beautiful.  Get the ball, feed Maten, and score.  Wish that one had been drawn up at the end of regulation.
• Kenny Gaines went to the basket more in this game, and I loved it.  He didn't always finish, but he had two big buckets late.  He has been relegated to something like a 3-point specialist, and while he's a great shooter from distance, there can be more to his game.
• Kenny Paul Geno failed to score again, but here's why you don't hear me complaining about his minutes: on the season, he's averaging (all numbers rounded) 3 rebounds, 2 assists, half a block, a steal, and only 1 turnover per game, and he's doing so from a position at which Georgia has very little depth.
• I confess, I'm the one who yelled, "No, Charles!" as he let go of that dagger 16-foot jump shot in overtime.  Good shot, Charles!

I've given up trying to figure this team out.  I'm just going to try to enjoy the ride.

Now's when the schedule gets brutal.  If Georgia thinks they're a postseason team, now would be the time to start proving it...

Playing to strength

Read this article about Lorenzo Romar and his young Washington Huskies.  For context, you may want to research last year's Washington Huskies, which turned into a true dumpster fire after starting the season 11-0 and being ranked as high as #13.

Here's what Romar is dealing with:

Of the Huskies’ seven top scorers from last season, three transferred, two graduated, and one was kicked off the team.

What he's left with is a talented but raw group of freshmen.  So how are they first in the Pac-12?  Glad you asked:

“Make no mistake about it, we are going run, play an up-tempo style. Our length and athleticism will be a strength (as will) the fact that we have multiple players that can make plays.”

Jealous yet?

Next time you see four freshmen sitting on the bench while some of our "experienced veterans" flounder on the court, just ask yourself, is our coach adjusting to his team, or is he trying to jam a square peg into a round hole night after night?

Mark Fox seems to have the X's and O's, and he finally has some Jimmy's and Joe's...so why isn't it adding up to more?

[Deadspin]

Missouri: post mortem

That game was every meal I've ever eaten at Applebee's.  Just good enough:

• Georgia has three guys right now playing major minutes who are extreme offensive liabilities: Mike Edwards, Houston Kessler, and Kenny Paul Geno.
• Kessler may be a lost cause.  He has completely lost faith in his jumper.  Seriously, when's the last time he hit a jump shot?  I don't know either.  He did good work on the boards last night, and that shouldn't be overlooked
• Geno does enough good stuff on the court that his minutes don't feel wasted.
• Edwards could be a weapon if Georgia decided to run more, but in the half court, he disappears.
• So why doesn't Georgia run more?  I hope it's not their coach telling them not to, because it's become painfully obvious that the half court offense isn't working.  Occasionally Maten gets a good look out of a set play, but if Georgia still has the ball halfway through the shot clock, things are likely to end poorly.
• I'll state it more clearly: Fox has to loosen the reins and let this team run.  Period.
• And where are Turtle Jackson and E'Torrion Wilridge?  Jackson has a tougher road because he's stuck behind some real talent, but you're telling me Wilridge can't replace Geno or even Kessler for 10 minutes?  I find it hard to believe the dropoff would be that severe.  There has to be something else going on there.
• Ok, enough negativity.  It was a win, after all.  Hmm...let's see...what went right?  Oh, yes, Yante Maten.  Again.  I wouldn't even say it was one of his best games and he found 21 points, 12 rebounds, and 6 blocks.  6!
• Can we magically make J.J. Frazier and Kenny Gaines 4 inches taller?  Those two guys maximize their frames.  J.J., in particular, is so much fun to watch.
• Defensively, this team has it figured out.  Yes, Missouri is pretty bad, but despite hitting 7 3's, they didn't even crack 60 points.  In many ways, the Texas A&M game was an anomaly (that's not to say it was excusable).  The Aggies lights out shooting from range doesn't change the fact that Fox has his guys locked in on the defensive end.
• Derek Ogbeide continues to show little flashes of the player he's going to be.  That should have Georgia fans excited.  The lefty hook off the glass looked too easy.
• The late foul on Kenny Gaines was a joke, but Georgia needs better ball security there.  Fox's teams have a history of struggling to close out games.  I hope that doesn't rear its ugly head again.
• And Charles...what are you doing closing so hard on the 3-point shooter in that situation?  Bad foul that fortunately didn't cost the Dawgs a win.

Listen, I'll take it.  But there are some fundamental problems that need to be addressed on offense.  When it's so obvious the announcers see it, maybe it's time to rethink the plan.  Fox has his most talented and most athletic team...maybe ever.  Drowning them in complex half court sets isn't working.

Arkansas comes into Athens on Saturday, and they like to play fast.  Maybe it will force his hand and the team will get to run.  Remember the Oakland game?  That doesn't have to be the exception!  It can be the rule...

Will the real Slim Shady please stand up?

Here are the scoring totals for Georgia in their last 6 halves of basketball:

1. 44 (Ole Miss)
2. 27 (Ole Miss)
3. 28 (Tennessee)
4. 53 (Tennessee)
5. 23 (Texas A&M)
6. 22 (Texas A&M)

That's two halves where Georgia looked like a 3 or 4 seed (no, I'm not kidding) and four halves where Georgia looked like an SEC bottom-feeder.  The Missouri game is the last time Georgia strung two decent halves together, and Missouri is...not great.

Speaking of the Tigers, Georgia is off to visit Mizzou Wednesday night.  What will we get?  Your guess is as good as mine.

Texas A&M: post mortem

Georgia basketball enjoyed a Saturday off, something that's extremely valuable during the grind that is SEC play.  Unfortunately, no one told Texas A&M, so the Aggies showed up and took Georgia's lunch money.

I don't like to focus on the negative...so this is going to be really short:

• Taking into account the setting, the opponent, and the magnitude of the game, it's hard to come up with a worse loss, certainly in the Mark Fox era...but perhaps well beyond that.  This was at home, in front of a packed Stegeman Coliseum, against an Aggies team that is very good...but not nearly as good as Georgia made them look.  I mean, really, what was that?
• Bad games happen.  There are things you can't control.  Texas A&M shot the ball very well, even when contested.  However, you can control effort and execution, and neither was there on Saturday.  There wasn't a single moment when Georgia was in that game.
• We've reached a point in the season where we kind of know what Georgia is and what they are not.  Here's a hint: if J.J. Frazier and Kenny Gaines are both on, Georgia wins.  If one or the other is on, Georgia is in the game.  If neither are on, Georgia loses.  Yante Maten may very well be the most talented Bulldog, but as those two go, so goes the team.
• Mark Fox may owe Kirby Smart an apology...not the greatest recruiting atmosphere on Saturday...

Let's not dwell on this one.  We're going to learn a lot about the character and fight of this team on Wednesday night at Missouri.  It's a game Georgia should win handily, and it's a game they now have to win if they want any sort of postseason play.  As opportunities for resume wins slip away, there is no more margin for error (there wasn't much anyway).

The situation

The Numbers

CBSSports RPI:  66

ESPN BPI:  45, in tournament as 11 seed playing in Dayton
RPIForecast.com:  66 (I made a mistake last week and used the projected value, not the live value)

CBS Bracketology:  Out

ESPN Bracketology:   N/A

 
The Resume

Good Wins:  Georgia Tech

Bad Losses:  None

The Schedule

Potential Top 50 Wins:  Texas A&M, @Baylor, South Carolina, @Kentucky, Florida, @Vanderbilt, @South Carolina

Potential Bad Losses:  Legion

What It All Means

No, Georgia isn't a tournament team right now.  That they're a free throw and two officiating mistakes away from an 8 or 9 seed wouldn't sway the committee one bit.

10 more wins.  Can Georgia find 10 more wins?  I still don't know.  This Saturday sets up as a huge game.

Pop quiz: when is the last time Georgia beat a ranked opponent?

Answer: On 1/8/2014, Georgia beat #21 Missouri 70-64.  Before that it was #12 Florida on 2/25/2012.

Georgia is just 3-18 against ranked opponents in the last four and a half seasons.  That's not good enough.  Mark Fox has raised the floor for the program.  The Bulldogs generally beat the teams they're supposed to beat.  Now it's time to spring some upsets.

Is Georgia good enough to win on Saturday?  Absolutely.  They'll be at home in front of a big crowd, and the Aggies are good but not invincible.  Will they?  The answer will go a long way towards determining the postseason fate of this team...

Tennessee: post mortem

The lack of energy and execution in the first half was incredibly disappointing, and I'm not the only one who thought so.  Mark Fox lit into his team in the postgame interview for sloppy passing, passive defense, and soft offense.  It was almost a worst-case-scenario first half, one in which the Volunteers 7 point lead felt way too small...but also felt insurmountable.

Then Kenny Gaines and J.J. Frazier happened, and now we're talking about a nice win instead of a crippling loss:

• I'm going to go out on a limb and say any game in which Frazier and Gaines combine for 50+ points is a game Georgia is going to win.  Period.
• If Frazier was 6 inches taller he'd probably be averaging a double-double.  It's amazing to watch him rebound in person.  He literally comes out of nowhere.
• Why did Mark Fox yank him immediately after he split the double team with a spin move and buried a three?  I wish I could explain it.  His substitutions drive me batty sometimes.
• Yante Maten struggled from the field last night, and that was very much by design as Tennessee came in determined not to let him have his way, but his 8 rebounds were huge.  Throw in a couple blocked shots and he still managed to affect the game positively despite being taken away offensively.
• Maten and Derke Ogbeide barely lost the rebounding battle to Tennessee's entire team.  It was 22-15.  They matched them in offensive rebounds at 6.
• It was great to see Ogbeide get his first start, too.  He couldn't get the ball in the basket either, but expect huge strides out of him the next few games.  He seems more and more comfortable.
• Another solid effort from Charles Mann.  That's three straight.  And don't look now, but he's shooting 59% from behind the 3-point line.  Shot selection, shot selection, shot selection.
• Kenny Gaines is getting hit with at least one offensive foul per game, and it's almost always the right call.  He has a bad habit of stopping and pushing off with his left arm...
• Some great work out of Mike Edwards on defense and on the boards, which is exactly what Georgia needs out of him right now.
• Kenny Paul Geno is under-appreciated by just about everyone not named Mark Fox.  He'll never score in bunches, but he is exactly what every coach wants out of a 6th man.  He defends, passes, and rebounds, and he doesn't make a ton of costly mistakes (foul language aside, of course).
• Kevin Punter, Jr. is a great player.  Kenny Gaines and J.J. Frazier did a nice job of bottling him up, but he found a way to score, which is what great players do.
• I thought it was a well officiated game.  That doesn't mean I agreed with every call (I especially liked when they called a foul and then huddled to try to figure out who had been fouled), but I thought they were consistent, which is all I ever ask.
• Nice crowd, too.  The building was understandably dead at halftime, but it was rocking when Frazier and Gaines got it going, and it made a huge difference.  I expect more of the same on Saturday.

Was Georgia fortunate to survive that first half?  Yes.  Were they lucky to win the game?  Not at all.  With the first half in Oxford and the second half last night we're starting to see the full potential of this group.  When you have a major scoring threat in the post and two guards who can fill it up you're forcing an opponent to pick their poison.  Last night that meant open looks for the guards, and they knocked them down.

Saturday is huge.  Huge, huge, huge.  Get on down to Athens and make some noise, will ya?

“Learning some plays, rebounding the loose balls, the 50-50 balls."

Nice article from Seth Emerson about the emergence of Derek Ogbeide.  This caught my eye at the very end:

Fox said Kessler “grades out defensively better than just about anybody on our team.” While he may not rack up the blocks and steals, good defense also includes more subtle things, like staying in front of your man and making the right switch.

I don't doubt that it's true, but staying in front of your man and making the right switch doesn't mean anything if you lack the physical tools to defend that man or grab and hold onto rebounds.  I appreciate everything Houston Kessler has done, and he's a guy I want coming off my bench a few minutes every game, but if you speed up the tape and look at results, I don't see how you can conclude he deserves to start on this team.

I really don't mean to talk down on the young man, and I hope that's not how this comes across, but Mark Fox has a history of valuing experience over talent (ahem, Sherrard Brantley and Kenny Gaines).  As his recruiting improves (and it has), that philosophy has to change, or the slow starts will continue to haunt this program.

[DawgNation]

Ole Miss: post mortem

That was a tough loss for so many reasons.  It's a game Georgia easily could have won against an opponent who will probably be on or near the bubble at the end of the season lost on a circus shot in the last seconds of regulation.  That's now 3 losses by a total of 5 points, and each one is painful in its own way:

• In a 1-point loss, it's tempting to go back and figure out where the game might have been lost, so indulge me while I do just that.
• Start with the very first possession of the game.  Georgia, by and large, gets very little done on inbounds plays, and Stefan Moody had obviously watched some tape.  He sat on the long inbounds pass and got two free points.
• Then there's the technical foul on Kenny Paul Geno - a truly baffling call.  I'm not endorsing the language, and had Geno aimed the comment directly at the Ole Miss player the call would have been justified.  As it happened, though, that's just a terrible call, plain and simple.  You're a referee not the morality police.
• Only the officials can stop Yante Maten.  Don't you get the feeling Georgia might have pulled it out if he had been able to play the last few minutes?
• It's tempting to blame the loss on the free throws, but Ole Miss was just as bad in that department.  It was essentially a wash.
• In fact, if you want to see what two evenly matched teams look like, scan the box score for this one.  For starters, you'll see the same exact shooting percentage on the same number of shots.
• Forgive me for saying so, but Stefan Moody has to be the most over-hyped player in the SEC (much like Marshall Henderson before him).  Is he good?  Yes!  He's very good.   But aside from free throw percentage, where does he stand out?  He's a high scorer because he's a volume shooter.  His assist-to-turnover ratio is nice but not astronomical, and he can steal the ball.
• But he sure does get the star treatment from the officials.  You can't touch the guy (the call on Gaines in the last two minutes was particularly egregious)...
• Teams are starting to clamp down on Maten and J.J. Frazier.  Maten's answer has been an extension of his game to the top of the key (and now officially above the 3-point line).  Frazier continues to be productive in many areas, but he's struggling to find good looks.
• Charles Mann was great, and the officials got to call a charge on him, so all is right with the world.
• Nice strong move by Toe in the post.  That was unexpected.
• Nice game for Derek Ogbeide too - a point away from the first of many double-doubles.  He's going to keep getting better and better.
• I have to ride the fans a little bit - if it were up to the Ole Miss crowd, every single opponent possession would end with a travel or an offensive foul.  There's a fine line between partisan and ignorant.
• Speaking of...that ball went out of bounds off of Moody, didn't it?  It seemed clear from the replay.  Is that me being biased?

After Frazier's 3-pointer to make it a 4 point game, I think Georgia got everything they wanted.  A Rasheed Brooks corner 3 (he's shooting less than 30% on the season), followed by a nice look for Kenny Gaines, followed by a great defensive possession that forced an ugly shot.  If any of those three things goes a different way, Georgia wins.  Unfortunately, it wasn't in the cards.

This is one to remember if Georgia is on or outside the bubble in two months.  Tennessee becomes almost a must-win game on Wednesday night.  Hope to see you there.

The situation

Welcome back to "The situation," a series of posts tracking my completely ignorant takes on Georgia's postseason hopes.  I will try, and fail, to post this every Thursday.

 
The Numbers

CBSSports RPI:  63

ESPN BPI:  46
RPIForecast.com:  93

CBS Bracketology:  Out

ESPN Bracketology:   N/A

 
The Resume

Good Wins:  Georgia Tech

Bad Losses:  None

The Schedule

Potential Top 50 Wins:  Texas A&M, @Baylor, South Carolina, @Kentucky, Florida, @Vanderbilt, @South Carolina

Potential Bad Losses:  Legion

What It All Means

If the tournament started today, Georgia would almost certainly be excluded and may even be a bubble NIT team.  Fortunately for college basketball fans everywhere, it doesn't.  There's a long way to go.

The lack of bad losses helps the Dawgs, but Georgia really, really needs a few top 50 wins.  Beating the teams you're supposed to beat is a big part of the battle, but it never hurts to spring an upset or two.

Meanwhile, the 2-point losses to Chattanooga and Kansas State really hurt, not because they're bad losses (yet), but because each of those teams is likely to finish the year as a top 100 team in the RPI.  Oh well.  Water under the bridge, and all.

The path to the dance is not an easy one.  The schedule is difficult (look at how many of those potential top 50 wins are away from Stegeman).  11 wins - and avoiding road losses to Missouri and Mississippi State - probably gets it done.  But can you find 11 more wins on the schedule?  I'm an eternal optimist, and I'm struggling to do so...

Missouri: post mortem

Sorry for the silence.  I am a computer programmer by trade, so one of the small joys in life is taking a long Christmas break and unplugging.

I was lucky enough to miss most of the Florida game, but I was in my seat last night, and I enjoyed what I saw:

• Yante Maten continues to be the truth.  He was a tad careless with the ball at times, but really, that's a nitpick.  He completely dominated the first 10 minutes of the game, and that domination led to open shot after open shot for Georgia's perimeter players.
• I will go out on a limb and say Georgia will win every game in which they hit 11/19 3-point shots.  Some of it was just good shooters getting hot, but a lot of it was the team taking good shots.  Charles Mann is hitting 50%(!) of his 3-point shots this year.  Why?  Because he's stopped taking the bad ones.
• 19 assists on 29 field goals is a winning formula, too.  That means a lot of shots came in the natural flow of the offense.
• In fact, Georgia dominated just about every statistical category.  Missouri had more steals and less turnovers, but that wasn't nearly enough to compensate for their many shortcomings.
• Kevin Puryear did good work, and while Mike Edwards was completely overmatched, these lessons will translate into success as his body and mind round into SEC shape.
• The freshmen averaged 15 minutes on the floor.  That's 60 minutes of SEC play for the youngsters.
• Charles Mann seems to be either on or off this year.  There is very little in between.  He was on last night, and when he's on, Georgia is tough to beat.
• After an 0-14 run following the Seton Hall game, Kenny Paul Geno finally saw another 3-point shot go down against Mizzou.  His intangibles are so good at this point that I can live with him jacking up one or two per game.
• Turtle Jackson can pass, and his teammates are going to have to start looking for the ball when he's on the court.  It's fun to watch, and it'll be more fun when more of these passes start turning into assists.

There's really not much to say, and that's a good thing.  Georgia overwhelmed a bad opponent at home.  The next one - Ole Miss on the road - won't be so easy, and will tell us a lot about whether this team is ready to make a run through the SEC or not.