SEC Tournament: post mortem

Georgia will come up one game short.

I don't just mean the Kentucky game.  If you change any single loss on Georgia's schedule to a win, I believe they'd be dancing.  Instead it's a likely NIT home game as a 3 or 4 seed:

• If you're tempted to get down, just remember: Yante Maten and J.J. Frazier are coming back next season.
• Georgia played 30 minutes of great basketball against Mississippi State, followed by 6 minutes of garbage-ball, followed by 4 minutes of clinging desperately to a lead.  This team is a roller coaster.
• The maroon Bulldogs really never had a chance.  They played well in stretches, and they hit some timely shots, but Maten just completely overwhelmed them.
• The top of the key 3 is officially part of Maten's arsenal, arriving a year earlier than I thought it would.  That guy has 1st-team SEC written all over him next year.
• As great as Georgia looked in stretches during the Mississippi State game, they barely played with a pulse for the majority of the South Carolina game.  Had the Gamecocks played with any sense of urgency they would have run the Bulldogs out of the building.  Instead it set up Frazier's heroics.
• That sequence by J.J. at the end of the game was simply spectacular.  Splitting the double team was hard enough.  Hitting the floater over a seven footer?  High degree of difficulty.  Getting the steal and taking a foul?  Come on.
• Have you ever seen Mark Fox so emotional on the sideline?  I haven't.  He knew what that game meant to his team.  Say what you want about Fox, but the man sure can coach with his back to the wall.  I'd like to see that same sense of urgency out of him in November.
• The first half of the Kentucky game is as much fun as I've had watching Georgia basketball since...last year's Kentucky game.  That was big boy basketball, and Georgia hit them in the mouth, matching them punch for punch.  I didn't believe for a second it would hold, but I can handle losing when my team fights like that.
• Are we seeing the emergence of Mike Edwards?  Listen, if Jonas Hayes can duplicate whatever he did with Yante Maten this summer, Edwards, Derek Ogbeide, and Maten are going to be an absolutely terrifying front court next season.
• To state the obvious, the game turned when J.J. re-retwisted (intentionally redundant) that ankle.  I still think Georgia loses if it doesn't happen, but that sucked the life out of the team.  Frazier is clearly their emotional center.
• Have I mentioned how much I hate Kentucky lately?  Or how pretentious and over-hyped "Big Blue Nation" is?
• Jamal Murray, though...phew...go get your money, son.
• It's not a stretch to say that Georgia would have beaten all but about 5 teams in the country with the game they played today, and they would have beaten Kentucky on most nights, too.  The Cats managed to shoot 50% and hit 9 3-point shots.  They're a great team, but someone with great defensive length and interior presence is going to send them packing sooner or later.
• It may be Texas A&M tomorrow.  LSU...yikes...
• Turtle: stay hot.

It wasn't the season we hoped it'd be, but there are reasons to love these Dawgs.  They will fight until there are no more games to play, and I will be right there with them.