It’s not enough for Georgia men’s basketball to play a tough schedule. If the Bulldogs want to earn at-large bids to the NCAA basketball tournament, they need to start beating good opponents. They blew a prime chance to do it at Texas A&M on Tuesday night. Now, Georgia is back on the wrong side of the NCAA bubble.
The collective forecasts at the Bracket Matrix projected that the Bulldogs would be one of the last teams to earn an at-large bid. That was before the Bulldogs lost at A&M. That makes nine losses for UGA in 11 Quad 1 games. The NCAA tournament selection committee values those most. Teams that have a good record while playing few Quad 1 games tend to get more credit than those that play a lot of them and lose most.
Georgia is in the latter category with three weeks left in the regular season. Its next four games qualify as Quad 1 contests: versus No. 21 Missouri, at No. 1 Auburn, versus No. 3 Florida and at Texas. It’s hard to see the Bulldogs winning even half of them or adding to the Quad 1 tally at the SEC tournament. They’ve lost seven Quad 1 games in a row, and one of their quality victories may not stay that way with the way Oklahoma is going.
In some ways, Mike White’s third season as Georgia coach already has been a success. Back-to-back victories over Kentucky and Oklahoma in January earned the Bulldogs their first AP poll ranking since 2011. They were energized by an electric atmosphere at sold-out Stegman Coliseum. It seemed the Bulldogs were poised to make a run for their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2015.
Instead, they haven’t looked ready for the big time. UGA has lost five consecutive games against top-10 SEC foes by an average margin of 17 points. The loss to the eighth-ranked Aggies looked like too many other SEC road games. The Bulldogs quickly gave back a halftime lead as the home team overwhelmed them. The same thing happened at No. 19 Ole Miss, No. 5 Tennessee and Arkansas.
This time, Georgia took the collapse to a new extreme. Per SEC Network, Texas A&M’s 22-0 run in the second half was the longest in league games this season. Maybe things would have gone differently for UGA if Tyrin Lawrence (leg) and Dakota Leffew (ankle) had been available. It’s also possible the Bulldogs would have faded to another road loss even if their two senior guards had played.
This is the best team of White’s three seasons as UGA coach. It’s also the toughest schedule the Bulldogs have ever played. They’ve faced 10 games against teams ranked in the current AP Top 25, including six against top-10 opponents. Georgia has no bad losses on its resume, but has only two Quad 1 victories. If that doesn’t change, then the Bulldogs won’t hear their name called on Selection Sunday for the ninth consecutive year (the tournament was canceled in 2020, but Georgia wasn’t going to be in it without a miracle SEC tournament run).
The Bulldogs hired White to end that drought. He guided Florida to the NCAA Tournament in four of his seven seasons in Gainesville (the Gators were on track for a bid in 2020). White’s $3.5 million salary ranks eighth highest among SEC coaches, according to the USA Today database. UGA’s men’s basketball budget ranks 10th among the 13 SEC programs included in Sportico’s college sports finance database.
White’s recruiting has beaten mid-tier expectations. He signed three consensus top-100 recruits as part of the 2023 class. Silas Demary and Blue Cain are solid starters this season. White’s 2024 recruiting class included two top-100 recruits. Asa Newell is the second-highest rated recruit to play for UGA behind Anthony Edwards. Newell leads the Bulldogs in points and rebounds.
White has the program on firm-enough footing that missing the NCAA Tournament this season won’t necessarily portend bad things to come. Then again, I thought the same thing after Tom Crean’s team missed the NCAA Tournament with a resume similar what the Bulldogs have now. A mass exodus of transfers decimated the roster for the next season. Georgia fired Crean after a 1-17 SEC finish in 2021-22.
I don’t see White having the same problems as Crean did with keeping good players around. Newell likely is headed to the NBA draft this summer, but a young core of talented players will be left behind. Two more top-100 recruits are signed for next season. White can fill in any gaps with transfer players.
White quickly made the Bulldogs respectable the season after Crean was dismissed. They were better the next season and even better this season. The challenge is that SEC men’s basketball is better than it’s ever been. That’s provided the Bulldogs with plenty of opportunities to earn quality victories. They are on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble because they haven’t won enough of them.
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