ATHENS -- Georgia basketball was officially asked to the Big Dance for the first time in a decade.
The Bulldogs (20-13, 8-11 SEC) earned a No. 9 seed in the NCAA Tournament, a major benchmark in third-year coach Mike White’s rebuild to relevance in the SEC.
UGA will open March Madness action against No. 8 seed Gonzaga in Wichita, Kansas. The Bulldogs and the Zags (27-8, 16-4 WCC) will tip off on Thursday at Intrust Bank Arena.
Georgia will be seeking its first NCAA Tournament win since 1996.
White and the Bulldogs were together in the team facility attached to Stegeman Coliseum to celebrate their return to the tournament. UGA’s furious four-game winning streak to end the regular season, sparked by an 88-83 upset of SEC Tournament champion Florida.
Then Georgia leapfrogged fellow bubble team Texas with a road upset four days later. The Bulldogs beat South Carolina on the road and finished the regular season with a home win over No. 10 seed Vanderbilt.
It was a victory lap of sorts for White, who many Georgia fans doubted from the minute he arrived on campus three years ago. Those doubts bled well into 2025 as the Bulldogs scuffled through a brutal SEC schedule.
“Two huge in-season responses, two four-game losing streaks,” White said. “The narrative is, ‘What is wrong with Georgia, wheels falling off?’ Are you kidding me? We lost to really, really good teams. We played more top teams than any team in college basketball.”
White, of course, will maintain the same daily focus on ‘the process’ that he has harped on throughout the season.
Georgia is in the Midwest division of the bracket, headlined by No. 1 seed Houston. The Bulldogs would face the winner between the Cougars (33-4, 22-1 Big 12) and No. 16 seed SIU Edwardsville in the Round of 32 on Saturday.
The First Four will start tournament action on Tuesday. Eight teams named to the 68-team field will battle at the University of Dayton in Dayton, Ohio.
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