After not meeting this season for the first time in almost a century, Georgia Tech and Georgia will renew their basketball series next season in Athens on Nov. 19. The contract for the game was obtained through an open-records request.
The Yellow Jackets and Bulldogs were to play this season at McCamish Pavilion, also Nov. 19. However, the game was put in doubt by the NCAA’s decision to delay the start of the season until Nov. 25 for teams to start the season when most students would not be on campus as a COVID-19 precaution. The change left Tech and Georgia scrambling to find a makeup date, which they were unable to do. As a result, Tech and Georgia did not face each other for the first time since the 1923-24 season.
The game, which next season will be played on a Friday, appears to have found a home in the week before Thanksgiving. After the game was played in December following the end of the semester from 2015-18, the two teams moved the game to that week to enable students to more easily attend the games.
Georgia has won the past five meetings between the in-state rivals. In next season’s game, Tech forward Rodney Howard figures to become possibly the second player in the history of the basketball rivalry to play on both sides. Howard transferred from Georgia to Tech in April after playing his freshman season for the Bulldogs. Lee Goza played for Georgia in 1978-79, transferred to a junior college and then finished his career at Tech.
