Georgia basketball overpowered late at No. 1 Auburn

“They’ve got four elite shooters -- not good shooters -- four guys that can really fill it up that are capable of making multiple threes,” UGA coach Mike White said. “So when the floor is a little bit extended for him because of the attention to detail with those shooters, he’s able to put his head down and draw fouls and drive it and back you down.”

Broome helped the Tigers outscore Georgia 38-26 in the paint and win the rebound battle 40-35.

The Tigers carried the lead into the final minutes and forced the Bulldogs to foul for free throws. Auburn shot 10 of 10 from the foul line in the final 90 seconds to close the win.

The Tigers outscored UGA 12-5 in the last two minutes.

Georgia’s top two scorers turned in impressive games, too. Asa Newell led the Bulldogs with 20 points and five rebounds while Silas Demary Jr. totaled 18 points.

Georgia is 0-21 all-time against AP No. 1-ranked teams. The Bulldogs lost 70-68 to Auburn in Athens earlier this season, missing a game-tying tip-in at the buzzer off the front of the rim.

Credit: AP

Credit: AP

The Bulldogs dropped their fourth straight SEC game. All of UGA’s 11 losses have been Quad 1 defeats.

“Good offense always beats good defense, and some of those possessions, we did a pretty good job,” White said. “You force a tough two or you’ve got an aggressive wall-up, but whether it be Johni or Dylan Cardwell or one of those guys just making a play at the rim, they’re such a good passing team.”

Georgia did avoid the early second-half collapse that has killed its momentum in recent SEC losses. White has talked about experimenting with different halftime regimens to get the most out of his team in the first four minutes after the break.

He made changes during UGA’s off-week, adding a ‘halftime’ to the middle of practices before simulating the first four minutes of the second half.

White made one obvious change to start the second half, starting veteran backup center Justin Abson. The Appalachian State transfer helped Georgia pace Auburn through those first four minutes, the Tigers only outscoring the Bulldogs 9-8.

“There were several things that we changed,” White said. “One of them was personnel, one of them was the routine, one of them was how we started defensively, schematically and offensively. We made a bunch of changes hoping that one or two or three or four of those changes might help us get off to a better second half start.”

Neither offense seemed to find much rhythm in the first half, but Georgia started particularly cold. The Bulldogs made just four of their first 20 shots, including an 0-for-6 start.

Auburn got out to a 9-0 start before Blue Cain ended the scoring drought with a 3-pointer. UGA got within three points of Auburn’s lead at the 10:53 mark.

The Bulldogs trailed the Tigers by a couple possessions for most of the half. Demary cut Auburn’s lead to 29-24 at the half with an impressive last-second 3-pointer.

Demary led Georgia with seven points, three assists and three rebounds at the break.

UGA is back in action hosting No. 2 Florida at 7 p.m. on Tuesday (TV: SEC Network). The Gators (23-3, 10-3) mark the eighth and final top-10 team on Georgia’s SEC schedule.