Georgia is nationally ranked in men’s basketball, and this time the program isn’t headed off a cliff.
The Bulldogs returned to the Associated Press Top 25 on Monday, checking in at No. 24 on the strength of Saturday’s 77-70 defeat of No. 10 Kentucky. The Wildcats dropped to No. 13 following their setback at Stegeman Coliseum, and those are the lone Southeastern Conference teams ranked this week.
“I don’t know if it makes any difference to us right now,” Bulldogs coach Mark Fox said. “We’ve still got games to play.”
Georgia’s last previous ranking was in the final poll of the 2002-03 season, when Jim Harrick’s Bulldogs were No. 25. Those Bulldogs had dropped from No. 21 the previous week, when university president Michael Adams announced the program would withdraw from the SEC and NCAA tournaments after an internal investigation revealed academic fraud.
Fox’s Bulldogs are 12-2 overall following Saturday’s league opener and have won nine straight games for the first time since the 1982-83 season, when they reached their lone NCAA Final Four. While Fox was downplaying any significance to the ranking, Kentucky coach John Calipari believes the Bulldogs are deserving.
“They wanted it worse than we did,” Calipari said. “I have some guys that have to learn what it means to be committed. I have a couple of guys who are content when they get minutes and score, but they’re not committed. Late in that game, we did not huddle because a kid is 2-for-11 and he can’t see straight and another is 2-for-9 and is worried about how he looks.
“Georgia smelled the blood and tasted the blood and came after us and played with a higher intensity level than we did.”
The Bulldogs will be challenged to stay ranked with games Wednesday at Vanderbilt and Saturday at Ole Miss. Georgia went 0-8 last season in SEC road games, and Fox said the Commodores “may be the most complete team we’ve seen to date.”
Not buying buckets
LSU’s 62-55 win at Auburn last Saturday night contained one of the worst halves in league history. Auburn made just two of 24 shots in the first half and trailed 32-6 at halftime, and LSU opened the second half by building the bulge to 37-6.
“I think we set the game back about 50 years with our offensive performance,” Auburn coach Tony Barbee said. “We shot 8 percent and scored six points. I’ve never seen anything like it, but it is what it is. We’re an offensively challenged team and don’t have anyone we can post the ball to.”
Said LSU’s Trent Johnson: “I’d like to say we were great defensively, but they had a lot to do with it. They missed some point-blank layups and had some uncontested jump shots. I hope that’s the case with everybody we play moving forward.”
Traveling options
Monday morning’s snow and ice that hindered much of the Deep South had SEC coaches going over their midweek travel plans. Fox said he and his staff have debated possibilities of flying today from Athens as planned, busing to Atlanta to fly, busing all the way to Nashville or flying up Wednesday.
“You’ve got to cross those mountains near Chattanooga,” Fox said of busing the distance. “We have talked about all of them.”