Missed opportunity: Georgia basketball fades late as No. 5 Tennessee snaps win streak
A Georgia basketball team on its longest winning streak in more than 75 years had a chance Saturday to add its name to a wild week nationally in which four unranked teams brought down top 5 opponents.
No. 5 Tennessee dug deep against the Bulldogs by rallying late for an 85-79 victory, becoming the first visiting team to win in Stegeman Coliseum this season and snapping Georgia’s 10-game winning streak.
There’s no shame in losing to a Volunteers team that's a No. 2 seed in the latest NCAA tournament projection by ESPN and CBS, but this was a missed opportunity for a statement win for the Bulldogs seeking their first tournament appearance since 2015.
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Before a sold-out crowd of 10,523, Georgia was in position to topple a top-five team for the first time since Jan. 17, 2004 when it won 65-57 at No. 5 Kentucky. Instead, it has now lost 23 in a row to top-five opponents.
Georgia (12-4, 2-1) led 75-64 with 6:24 to go and 78-70 with under 5 minutes to go, but Tennessee closed the game on a 15-1 run.
"You know, honestly I'd be lying if I didn't tell you I'm disappointed that, you know if you're down 15 and you close it to five or six at the end, they're supposed to win," second-year coach Mike White said. "We're up, right, what, nine or 10 pretty late and just got out-executed down the stretch offensively and defensively by a team that's just better than we are right now. We hope to continue to improve."
White said with the game on the line, Georgia couldn't get clean looks until the Vols had taken control late.
"I felt like that was a good learning experience," said freshman guard Silas Demary, who had 13 points with 3 assists, no turnovers and 2 steals in 30 minutes. "We believe in ourselves that we can be in those big-time games. We don't want to dwell on it saying, dang, we should have won. We just want to work on it and fix everything we could have done to win the game."
Why Georgia basketball couldn't hold on against Tennessee Vols
Demary said he felt like Georgia got comfortable with the lead.
The Bulldogs finished 1 for their last 12 from the field while Tennessee closed 7 of 9.
"We wish we could have finished the 40," White said, "because we played a pretty good 35. A really good 35, the best we've played."
Dalton Knecht, a 6-foot-6 Northern Colorado transfer, scored 20 of his 36 points in the second half, looking every bit like a player ranked as the No. 32 overall prospect in a recent ESPN NBA mock draft.
"Good player," Georgia senior guard Jabri Abdur-Rahim, who scored a team-high 21 points and went 5 of 9 on 3s, said succinctly. "We tried to make it tough on him. He's a good player. Good player."
Georgia trailed 81-79 after Knecht buried a 3 with 1:56 to go and the Vols added four free throws from there. Knecht was 12 of 20 shooting and 5 of 8 on 3s.
"Sometimes good offense just beats good defense," White said. "He hit a couple that were heavily contested. I thought we had a couple of ill-advised fouls when we're over-pressuring him a little bit and then just gets easy ones at the foul line."
Tennessee led 42-28 after a steal from Zakai Ziegler (18 points, 5 assists) from Justin Hill and a layup.
The Volunteers made 16 of their first 28 shots while Georgia was 8 of 28 with Illinois transfer RJ Melendez (13 points, 6 rebounds) accounting for half of Georgia’s field goals at the time.
Georgia grabbed a 43-42 lead early in the second half after back-to-back 3-pointers from Abdur-Rahim and Noah Thomasson (14 points, 5 of 15 shooting).
White said it's the loudest he's heard Stegeman where he also coached from the visiting bench with Florida and Louisiana Tech.
White said before and after the game that Tennessee (12-4, 2-1) has a chance to be a Final Four team, but it was one of those top-five teams upset this week, falling at Mississippi State.
Top-ranked Purdue lost to Nebraska, No. 2 Houston to Iowa State, No. 3 Kansas to UCF.
UGA basketball let marquee win slip away
A W over Tennessee would have been big for a Georgia team that began the day on the NCAA tournament “bubble,” according to bracketologist Joe Lunardi of ESPN.
Instead it was their first loss since Nov. 19, snapping a 10-game streak that was its longest since the 1947-48 season.
Georgia has a chance for quality road wins at South Carolina (14-2, 2-1) Tuesday night and at No. 6 Kentucky (12-3, 2-1) next Saturday.
The Bulldogs began the day No. 84 in the NET and 0-0 in Quad 1 and 3-3 in Quad 2.
Tennessee, a 7½ point favorite, was No. 6. Georgia’s best win this season remains over No. 53 Wake Forest.
"We've handled success the right way over these past 10," White said. "Let's see how we handle some adversity. It's been a while. But also let's never be thrilled about a loss. We played them close, right? We played them close, we had a chance. The people that will say that's a great effort, we're trying to win those."
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Georgia basketball went toe-to-toe with No. 5 Tennessee but fades late
