Five key focal points for Georgia basketball down the stretch of the season
Georgia basketball desperately needs a win but it just so happens that it’s hitting the portion of its SEC schedule where it has a week between games.
So the Bulldogs on Saturday get a Florida team in Athens that just crushed Auburn in Gainesville.
Georgia will try to get its first win in three and a half weeks since a two-point home victory against LSU on Jan. 24.
More: Georgia basketball coach Mike White: Revved-up Stegeman home fans 'puts us in the game'
More: Georgia basketball signee Asa Newell wasn't named McDonald's All-American. This may be why
The Bulldogs’ five-game losing streak has dropped their record to 14-10 and 4-7 in the SEC, leaving their NCAA tournament chances dwindling.
With seven games to go before the SEC tournament in Nashville, here are five things that should be a focus down the stretch of the season.
Identify players to build around next season
It’s hard to keep tabs in this day and age of extra COVID seasons and rosters constantly in flux, but guard Noah Thomasson, center Russel Tchewa and forward RJ Sunahara will be out of eligibility after this season.
That leaves these front-end rotation players as the possible 2024-2025 corps: Jabri Abdur-Rahim, Justin Hill, RJ Melendez, Silas Demary and Blue Cain.
“We’ve got a couple of freshmen playing a lot of minutes that are really good that I think are going to be really good players,” coach Mike White said of guards Demary and Cain.
Further down the bench are froncourt players Jalen DeLoach, Dylan James, Frank Anselem-Ibe and Matthew Alexander-Moncrieffe. Freshman Mari Jordan hasn’t played this season.
Players, of course, could choose to leave for more playing time elsewhere—nine current players have already transferred once in their college careers—and NIL is a factor as well.
Abdur-Rahim, the team’s top scorer at 12.8 points per game, is 5 of his last 14 including 2 of 10 on 3s in the last two games and has scored in single digits in five of the last six games. White was pleased how active he was atop a 1-3-1 defense against Arkansas.
Melendez, who scored a career-high 35 points in an overtime loss to Florida on Jan. 27, is 4 of his last 12 including 1 of 6 on 3s with 11 total points in the last three games.
Keep giving Dylan James more minutes
After playing just 3 minutes in SEC play before last week, freshman forward Dylan James logged 10 and 15 minutes in games against Mississippi State and Arkansas.
He scored 7 points on 3 of 6 shooting with 3 rebounds, a block and rattled in a 3-pointer in the 78-75 loss to the Razorbacks.
“He’s just consistently brought it daily,” White said. “He’s very skilled, got a great feel, very talented, 6-9 with a long wingspan. Versatile offensively. He’s made a big jump defensively throughout the year in practice.”
James, the No. 78 overall prospect for the 2023 class by the 247Sports Composite, played in just six of the first 20 games of the season.
“His attitude has been incredible all year,” White said of the Winter Haven product after the Arkansas game. “He got his hands on basketballs in our zone, was long, was active.”
Nail down NIT bid
An NCAA bid isn’t off the table yet, but Georgia might need to do something like win five of its last seven and pull off the unexpected like sweeping two games with Auburn to have a chance.
The more realistic postseason spot is the NIT which Georgia last played in to end the 2017 season.
Getting in the NIT is more doable this year because the NCAA which runs the tournament has taken away guaranteed spots for conference regular season champions who don’t win their tournaments.
Under changes made this offseason, the SEC and the other five Power Conferences are guaranteed to have the two teams with the highest NCAA NET rankings that don’t make the NCAA tournament field get in the NIT.
ESPN’s latest bracket projections had nine SEC teams making the 68-team NCAA tournament field.
Georgia was at No. 95 in the NET on Monday, which ranked 11th in the SEC, a spot behind LSU.
Florida and Vanderbilt made the NIT last year with NET rankings of 62 and 81 respectively.
Avoid playing on first night of SEC tournament
A few weeks ago, this looked like a year where Georgia could avoid having to play on the first night of the SEC tournament.
Now Georgia is indeed slotted in the 11th seed spot, a half game behind 10th place LSU. That would mean playing Wednesday in Nashville against last-place Vanderbilt.
Georgia’s SEC finish has put them in one of the two opening night games in five of the last six seasons with 2021 the only year where they got a bye into Thursday’s games.
BartTorvik.com projects Georgia to go 7-11 in the SEC and finish 11th, a game behind LSU.
Mine the transfer portal
The 45-day transfer portal opens again on March 18, the day after Selection Sunday.
Georgia will be able to insert 6-10, 215-pound five-star freshman Asa Newell into the starting lineup next season, but could use even more help inside.
It is an abysmal 350th in conference play nationally in defending on two-point shots at 56.7 percent, last in the SEC and fourth worst among Power Conference schools, according to BartTorvik.
The Bulldogs also have struggled shooting inside the 3-point arc, ranking 239th in the nation in all games on two-pointers.
“We really struggle to score on the interior,” White said Friday. “Our margin for error defensively is pretty small.”
White said after Arkansas shot 65.7 percent on 2s that “mistakes can be loud for us. Mistakes can often end up as point-blank layups.”
This article originally appeared on Athens Banner-Herald: Here's what should be Georgia basketball focus rest of this season
