UGA MBB
ABH: How 'bracketologists' size up Georgia basketball's NCAA tourney chances as SEC play starts
“It's a good record, but there is no meat on the bones,” Jerry Palm, the longtime CBS Sports bracketologist, said via email. “They played a pretty poor schedule and lost their three toughest games. If Wake Forest is in the top five of their best wins at the end of the season, they probably won't get in (or WF turned out to be better than I expect).”
“They need to show they can beat tournament quality competition and ideally away from home,” Palm said. “In this case, if they can play well enough in the SEC to build up a tournament resume, they probably spent at least some time in the title race.”
Shelby Mast, who does NCAA projections at bracketwag.com, also has 9 SEC teams in the field.
He said of Georgia, which he has as his eighth team outside the field: “Things are looking better for them this year, but to be a tourney team, they’ve got to win the games they should, losing the games they should won’t hurt them, but sneak a win vs one of the SEC powers would help, especially on the road.”
Episode 1 of Inside Georgia Basketball - Full Court Press takes a look at some early season action of the Georgia men's basketball team.
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2024/1...eorgia-basketball-full-court-press-episiode-1
Justin Hill 👁️ 👁️
Blue Cain 📉
Next Opponent: Missouri
National Statistics
UGA/MO
PTS 271 249
PPG 177 150
FG% 264 160
FT% 232 27
3P% 144 136
R 112 306
A 232 172
TO 116 99
A|TO 140 100
BS 162 9
Ken Pom
UGA 85
MO 89
EVAN
UGA 109
MO 84
UGA
383 DeLoach
577 Hill
608 Demary
614 Melendez
628 JAR
1132 Cain
1264 Thomasson
1500 Tchewa
Missouri
138 Vanover
350 Carter
454 Bates
572 East
632 Grill (Injured)
721 Honor
908 Shaw
1285 Robinson
UGA Sports.com: Georgia basketball set to open SEC play
https://uga.rivals.com/news/bulldogs-set-to-open-sec-play-1
Gadogs.com: Bulldogs Open SEC Play At Missouri
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2024/1/5/mens-basketball-bulldogs-open-sec-play-at-missouri
Missouri
Men's Hoops Hosts Georgia in SEC Opener Saturday
ABOUT THE TIGERS
• Missouri finished its non-conference campaign with an 8-5 record.
• The Tigers are coming off their largest win of the season with a 92-59 victory over Central Arkansas last Saturday.
• Graduate guard Sean East II leads Mizzou with 17.1 points and 3.5 assists per game in 2023-24.
• Classmates Noah Carter (11.4) and Nick Honor (11.3) also score in double figures.
• Carter also leads the Tigers with 6.5 rebounds.
• Mizzou is averaging 76.5 points per game, while allowing 71.3 on the year.
ABOUT THE BULLDOGS
• Georgia enters SEC action after posting a 10-3 record during non-conference play.
• The Bulldogs have won their last eight games since last losing to Providence on Nov. 19.
• Jabri Abdur-Rahim leads the Bulldogs with 13.2 points, while Noah Thomasson is second with 12.3.
• Russel Tchewa has a team-best 6.3 rebounds with Justin Hill leading the way with 3.2 assists.
• Georgia averages 75.4 points on the offensive end, while allowing 69.4 points defensively.
SERIES HISTORY
• Missouri owns an 11-8 advantage in 19 all-time meetings, while the series is deadlocked at 8-8 since the Tigers joined the SEC in 2012-13.
• MU is 5-2 versus the Bulldogs at Mizzou Arena and have won the last three home matchups.
• Overall, the Tigers have claimed the last three contests and six of the last seven versus Georgia.
• Last year, Mizzou outscored the Bulldogs, 45-22, in the second half en route to an 85-63 victory.
TIGERS IN THE SEC
• Mizzou is set to open its 12th season of play in the SEC on Saturday.
• MU owns a 74-122 all-time record (37.8 winning percentage) since joining the conference prior to the 2012-13 campaign (nine SEC wins would later be vacated from the 2013-14 season).
• In its opening conference game of the season, the Tigers own a 4-7 record, including a 3-4 mark when played in Mizzou Arena.
• Last season, the Tigers ended a four-game losing streak in their SEC opener – winning the first SEC contest under Coach Gates with an 89-75 victory over No. 19/17 Kentucky.
MOST IMPROVED AWARD
• Sean East II has put his name in the conversation as one of the nation's most improved players.
• East leads the Tigers with 17.1 points per game – ranking fifth in the SEC and 117th nationally.
• The guard has increased his scoring by 9.8 points per game – the highest mark in the SEC.
• East, who averaged 8.4 points in his first three seasons, owns career-best marks in shooting percentage (56.8) and 3-point percentage (56.8).
NEARING 1,000
• Thanks to his strong start to the campaign, Sean East II is quickly approaching 1,000 career points.
• East is just 18 points shy of the career milestone, having scored 982 points in his first 3.5 seasons and 103 career games.
• The graduate would become the fourth active Tiger with 1,000 points – joining Nick Honor, Noah Carter and John Tonje.
BATES CATCHES FIRE
• Tamar Bates has found his role with MU and has become one of the team's top threats recently.
• For the first time in his career, Bates has scored in double figures in three-straight games, including two contests of 20-plus points and a career-best 25 in Mizzou's last game versus Central Arkansas.
• Bates has now tallied 19.0 points the last three games – shooting 65.5 percent from the field (19-29), 87.5 percent from 3-point range (7-8) and 100.0 percent from the free-throw line (12-12).
• Overall, the junior ranks fourth on the team with 9.8 points per game this season.
INSIDE GAME
• The Tigers are coming off their most dominating inside game of the season.
• Mizzou earned its largest win of the year, 92-59, over Central Arkansas thanks to a 46-16 edge in points in the paint and 23-5 advantage in second-chance points.
• MU outrebounded UCA, 47-22 – marking its most boards since collecting 49 against Paul Quinn in 2021 and its highest margin since outrebounding Arkansas-Pine Bluff, 56-30, in 2015.
DOUBLE-DIGIT OPTIONS
• Tamar Bates wasn't the only one that had a career-best scoring day in Mizzou's last game.
• Sophomore Aidan Shaw also scored 10 points for the first time in his career in the win.
• With his double-digit scoring performance, the Tigers have now had nine different players score at least 10 points in a game this season.
https://mutigers.com/news/2024/1/5/...ops-hosts-georgia-in-sec-opener-saturday.aspx
St.Louis Post Dispatch: Scoring, injuries and SEC standards: 3 questions facing Mizzou men's basketball in conference play
COLUMBIA, Mo. — “Now comes the hard part.
After emerging from a rollercoaster of a nonconference slate with an 8-5 record, Missouri men’s basketball now turns toward Southeastern Conference play.
Those 18 games against conference foes ultimately are what will make or break the Tigers’ second season under coach Dennis Gates, and the nonconference results suggest MU will need a lot to land in the “make” category by snagging a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
If the 19- or 20-win threshold is the benchmark for an SEC team to be tournament bid-worthy, Mizzou will need, yes, 11 or 12 wins in the upcoming conference stretch to make the cut. Last season’s surprise package of a team, for reference, went 11-7 in SEC play.
That leaves a handful of questions facing Gates and the Tigers ahead of Saturday’s noon SEC opener against Georgia.
East can score. Then who?
Starting point guard Sean East II has emerged as Missouri’s scorer. He has led the Tigers in points eight times so far this season, including in four of the last six games. East’s 17.1 points per game is fifth among SEC players.
The more remarkable part of East’s numbers, though, has been his efficiency. He’s shooting 56.8 percent from the floor and, uniquely, 56.8 percent from 3-point range, too. The latter mark leads the SEC while his field goal percentage is third in the conference.
In terms of shot quality, East seems to be finding his spots. He scores 1.34 points per shot via his jumper, per Synergy, including 1.28 per shot from his favored pull-ups off the dribble. Closer to the rim, East manages 0.92 points per shot with his runner and 1.39 points on layups.
But is his 3-point shooting clip sustainable? What happens if and when East is drawing SEC teams’ primary backcourt defenders? Those questions will likely shift focus to who Mizzou’s second and third options are.
In the games in which East was not MU’s top scorer, forward Noah Carter finished atop the scoresheet once while point guard Nick Honor and guard Tamar Bates have both led the team in points twice — with Bates doing so in two of the last three games.
Carter is second on the team in scoring but is in the midst of a shooting slump. In his last five games, the forward is 12 for 49 from the floor and two for 23 from beyond the arc.
Honor, the final leg of the three starting lineup anchors whom Gates carried over from his debut season, has yet to score on more than half his shots in any game this season. He finished two-for-eight in each of the Tigers’ last two games and has turned the ball over more this season than at any point in his career, save for his freshman season at Fordham.
Bates, meanwhile, saw his shot volume increase near the end of nonconference play, and he scored more than 20 points against Seton Hall on Dec. 17 and Central Arkansas on Dec. 30. His 55.2-percent 3-point shooting clip is third in the SEC, though that rate is also bound to fall.
What role will injuries play?
One of the biggest differences between the 2022-23 season and this season, in Gates’ eyes, is health.
“We didn’t have disruption. We didn’t have injuries,” Gates said during a December sit-down with the Post-Dispatch. “We didn’t have anything that stopped our starting five and our next couple of subs, it never stopped us from building momentum. This year, we’ve been dealt a different set of cards. And that’s OK; it’s part of it.”
Now, Mizzou is still without guard Caleb Grill — whose defense, in particular, provided value off the bench — for at least a couple more weeks, and guard Kaleb Brown is done for the year.
Getting Grill back will help the Tigers and open up some of the team’s most effective lineups: Of MU’s nine lineups that have played at least 10 minutes together and managed a positive net rating, Grill appears on four — and is part of other successful combinations that haven’t seen as much on-court time together.
And if Gates wants to be able to change up looks to add size or go small against various opponents, keeping his rotation both healthy and fresh will be important as Missouri settles into a two-games-per-week rhythm.
How tough will the SEC be?
Evaluating college basketball teams during nonconference play is always ripe for folly as programs balance buy games against small schools with heavyweight clashes and neutral-site duels.
That makes it hard to tell whether the SEC is as talent-laden as it has been in the past. There are four SEC teams — No. 5 Tennessee, No. 6 Kentucky, No. 22 Ole Miss and No. 25 Auburn — in the Top 25, though that count will certainly fluctuate as days get longer and March approaches.
Eight SEC teams managed to win 10 or more games during nonconference play. Six are undefeated on their home floors, and only five have played more than one true road game — there’s plenty unproven.
But in overall records, Missouri is ahead of only 5-8 Vanderbilt. Going against 10-3 Georgia, which has only seen its top scorer finish above 20 points three times, will be a barometer for whether the Tigers will be able to pick up the wins they need for a respectable SEC showing.”
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/col...cle_dc32409a-abd9-11ee-8898-0b35826fb5fb.html
2024 Recruiting
2025 Recruiting
UGA WBB
Gadogs.com: Georgia Set for SEC Road Matchup at Arkansas
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2024/1/5/womens-basketball-georgia-set-for-sec-road-matchup-at-arkansas
Bryan Eagle: A&M women go cold late as Georgia wins SEC opener
“They didn’t get any transition layups and we were boxing them out,” Georgia coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson said. “That is their game. They are a transition nightmare and they crash those offensive boards. The defense is why we won the game. Our defense dictated everything.”
“I played for her for three years, and I got recruited by her,” Nicholson said. “At the end of the day, I just knew I had to be locked in for my team. We had to get the win. That was just my mindset going forward. I think Joni loves it over there and I hope she has a successful season.”
https://theeagle.com/sports/college...cle_16913cfe-ab72-11ee-9dfb-6f1116ae78f0.html
ABH: 'Always near and dear': Joni Taylor returns to Athens with Texas A&M for SEC opener
Taylor was welcomed back warmly. She said that when they landed at the airport Wednesday people were waiting with signs. Same scene when they arrived at their hotel and at shoot-around today.
ABH: How 'bracketologists' size up Georgia basketball's NCAA tourney chances as SEC play starts
“It's a good record, but there is no meat on the bones,” Jerry Palm, the longtime CBS Sports bracketologist, said via email. “They played a pretty poor schedule and lost their three toughest games. If Wake Forest is in the top five of their best wins at the end of the season, they probably won't get in (or WF turned out to be better than I expect).”
“They need to show they can beat tournament quality competition and ideally away from home,” Palm said. “In this case, if they can play well enough in the SEC to build up a tournament resume, they probably spent at least some time in the title race.”
Shelby Mast, who does NCAA projections at bracketwag.com, also has 9 SEC teams in the field.
He said of Georgia, which he has as his eighth team outside the field: “Things are looking better for them this year, but to be a tourney team, they’ve got to win the games they should, losing the games they should won’t hurt them, but sneak a win vs one of the SEC powers would help, especially on the road.”
How 'bracketologists' size up Georgia basketball's NCAA tourney chances as SEC play starts
Georgia basketball, despite its 10-3 record, has a lot of work to do to break its NCAA tournament drought dating back to 2015. Here's the road ahead.
www.onlineathens.com
Episode 1 of Inside Georgia Basketball - Full Court Press takes a look at some early season action of the Georgia men's basketball team.
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2024/1...eorgia-basketball-full-court-press-episiode-1
Justin Hill 👁️ 👁️
Blue Cain 📉
Next Opponent: Missouri
National Statistics
UGA/MO
PTS 271 249
PPG 177 150
FG% 264 160
FT% 232 27
3P% 144 136
R 112 306
A 232 172
TO 116 99
A|TO 140 100
BS 162 9
Ken Pom
UGA 85
MO 89
EVAN
UGA 109
MO 84
UGA
383 DeLoach
577 Hill
608 Demary
614 Melendez
628 JAR
1132 Cain
1264 Thomasson
1500 Tchewa
Missouri
138 Vanover
350 Carter
454 Bates
572 East
632 Grill (Injured)
721 Honor
908 Shaw
1285 Robinson
UGA Sports.com: Georgia basketball set to open SEC play
https://uga.rivals.com/news/bulldogs-set-to-open-sec-play-1
Gadogs.com: Bulldogs Open SEC Play At Missouri
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2024/1/5/mens-basketball-bulldogs-open-sec-play-at-missouri
Missouri
Men's Hoops Hosts Georgia in SEC Opener Saturday
ABOUT THE TIGERS
• Missouri finished its non-conference campaign with an 8-5 record.
• The Tigers are coming off their largest win of the season with a 92-59 victory over Central Arkansas last Saturday.
• Graduate guard Sean East II leads Mizzou with 17.1 points and 3.5 assists per game in 2023-24.
• Classmates Noah Carter (11.4) and Nick Honor (11.3) also score in double figures.
• Carter also leads the Tigers with 6.5 rebounds.
• Mizzou is averaging 76.5 points per game, while allowing 71.3 on the year.
ABOUT THE BULLDOGS
• Georgia enters SEC action after posting a 10-3 record during non-conference play.
• The Bulldogs have won their last eight games since last losing to Providence on Nov. 19.
• Jabri Abdur-Rahim leads the Bulldogs with 13.2 points, while Noah Thomasson is second with 12.3.
• Russel Tchewa has a team-best 6.3 rebounds with Justin Hill leading the way with 3.2 assists.
• Georgia averages 75.4 points on the offensive end, while allowing 69.4 points defensively.
SERIES HISTORY
• Missouri owns an 11-8 advantage in 19 all-time meetings, while the series is deadlocked at 8-8 since the Tigers joined the SEC in 2012-13.
• MU is 5-2 versus the Bulldogs at Mizzou Arena and have won the last three home matchups.
• Overall, the Tigers have claimed the last three contests and six of the last seven versus Georgia.
• Last year, Mizzou outscored the Bulldogs, 45-22, in the second half en route to an 85-63 victory.
TIGERS IN THE SEC
• Mizzou is set to open its 12th season of play in the SEC on Saturday.
• MU owns a 74-122 all-time record (37.8 winning percentage) since joining the conference prior to the 2012-13 campaign (nine SEC wins would later be vacated from the 2013-14 season).
• In its opening conference game of the season, the Tigers own a 4-7 record, including a 3-4 mark when played in Mizzou Arena.
• Last season, the Tigers ended a four-game losing streak in their SEC opener – winning the first SEC contest under Coach Gates with an 89-75 victory over No. 19/17 Kentucky.
MOST IMPROVED AWARD
• Sean East II has put his name in the conversation as one of the nation's most improved players.
• East leads the Tigers with 17.1 points per game – ranking fifth in the SEC and 117th nationally.
• The guard has increased his scoring by 9.8 points per game – the highest mark in the SEC.
• East, who averaged 8.4 points in his first three seasons, owns career-best marks in shooting percentage (56.8) and 3-point percentage (56.8).
NEARING 1,000
• Thanks to his strong start to the campaign, Sean East II is quickly approaching 1,000 career points.
• East is just 18 points shy of the career milestone, having scored 982 points in his first 3.5 seasons and 103 career games.
• The graduate would become the fourth active Tiger with 1,000 points – joining Nick Honor, Noah Carter and John Tonje.
BATES CATCHES FIRE
• Tamar Bates has found his role with MU and has become one of the team's top threats recently.
• For the first time in his career, Bates has scored in double figures in three-straight games, including two contests of 20-plus points and a career-best 25 in Mizzou's last game versus Central Arkansas.
• Bates has now tallied 19.0 points the last three games – shooting 65.5 percent from the field (19-29), 87.5 percent from 3-point range (7-8) and 100.0 percent from the free-throw line (12-12).
• Overall, the junior ranks fourth on the team with 9.8 points per game this season.
INSIDE GAME
• The Tigers are coming off their most dominating inside game of the season.
• Mizzou earned its largest win of the year, 92-59, over Central Arkansas thanks to a 46-16 edge in points in the paint and 23-5 advantage in second-chance points.
• MU outrebounded UCA, 47-22 – marking its most boards since collecting 49 against Paul Quinn in 2021 and its highest margin since outrebounding Arkansas-Pine Bluff, 56-30, in 2015.
DOUBLE-DIGIT OPTIONS
• Tamar Bates wasn't the only one that had a career-best scoring day in Mizzou's last game.
• Sophomore Aidan Shaw also scored 10 points for the first time in his career in the win.
• With his double-digit scoring performance, the Tigers have now had nine different players score at least 10 points in a game this season.
https://mutigers.com/news/2024/1/5/...ops-hosts-georgia-in-sec-opener-saturday.aspx
St.Louis Post Dispatch: Scoring, injuries and SEC standards: 3 questions facing Mizzou men's basketball in conference play
COLUMBIA, Mo. — “Now comes the hard part.
After emerging from a rollercoaster of a nonconference slate with an 8-5 record, Missouri men’s basketball now turns toward Southeastern Conference play.
Those 18 games against conference foes ultimately are what will make or break the Tigers’ second season under coach Dennis Gates, and the nonconference results suggest MU will need a lot to land in the “make” category by snagging a spot in the NCAA Tournament.
If the 19- or 20-win threshold is the benchmark for an SEC team to be tournament bid-worthy, Mizzou will need, yes, 11 or 12 wins in the upcoming conference stretch to make the cut. Last season’s surprise package of a team, for reference, went 11-7 in SEC play.
That leaves a handful of questions facing Gates and the Tigers ahead of Saturday’s noon SEC opener against Georgia.
East can score. Then who?
Starting point guard Sean East II has emerged as Missouri’s scorer. He has led the Tigers in points eight times so far this season, including in four of the last six games. East’s 17.1 points per game is fifth among SEC players.
The more remarkable part of East’s numbers, though, has been his efficiency. He’s shooting 56.8 percent from the floor and, uniquely, 56.8 percent from 3-point range, too. The latter mark leads the SEC while his field goal percentage is third in the conference.
In terms of shot quality, East seems to be finding his spots. He scores 1.34 points per shot via his jumper, per Synergy, including 1.28 per shot from his favored pull-ups off the dribble. Closer to the rim, East manages 0.92 points per shot with his runner and 1.39 points on layups.
But is his 3-point shooting clip sustainable? What happens if and when East is drawing SEC teams’ primary backcourt defenders? Those questions will likely shift focus to who Mizzou’s second and third options are.
In the games in which East was not MU’s top scorer, forward Noah Carter finished atop the scoresheet once while point guard Nick Honor and guard Tamar Bates have both led the team in points twice — with Bates doing so in two of the last three games.
Carter is second on the team in scoring but is in the midst of a shooting slump. In his last five games, the forward is 12 for 49 from the floor and two for 23 from beyond the arc.
Honor, the final leg of the three starting lineup anchors whom Gates carried over from his debut season, has yet to score on more than half his shots in any game this season. He finished two-for-eight in each of the Tigers’ last two games and has turned the ball over more this season than at any point in his career, save for his freshman season at Fordham.
Bates, meanwhile, saw his shot volume increase near the end of nonconference play, and he scored more than 20 points against Seton Hall on Dec. 17 and Central Arkansas on Dec. 30. His 55.2-percent 3-point shooting clip is third in the SEC, though that rate is also bound to fall.
What role will injuries play?
One of the biggest differences between the 2022-23 season and this season, in Gates’ eyes, is health.
“We didn’t have disruption. We didn’t have injuries,” Gates said during a December sit-down with the Post-Dispatch. “We didn’t have anything that stopped our starting five and our next couple of subs, it never stopped us from building momentum. This year, we’ve been dealt a different set of cards. And that’s OK; it’s part of it.”
Now, Mizzou is still without guard Caleb Grill — whose defense, in particular, provided value off the bench — for at least a couple more weeks, and guard Kaleb Brown is done for the year.
Getting Grill back will help the Tigers and open up some of the team’s most effective lineups: Of MU’s nine lineups that have played at least 10 minutes together and managed a positive net rating, Grill appears on four — and is part of other successful combinations that haven’t seen as much on-court time together.
And if Gates wants to be able to change up looks to add size or go small against various opponents, keeping his rotation both healthy and fresh will be important as Missouri settles into a two-games-per-week rhythm.
How tough will the SEC be?
Evaluating college basketball teams during nonconference play is always ripe for folly as programs balance buy games against small schools with heavyweight clashes and neutral-site duels.
That makes it hard to tell whether the SEC is as talent-laden as it has been in the past. There are four SEC teams — No. 5 Tennessee, No. 6 Kentucky, No. 22 Ole Miss and No. 25 Auburn — in the Top 25, though that count will certainly fluctuate as days get longer and March approaches.
Eight SEC teams managed to win 10 or more games during nonconference play. Six are undefeated on their home floors, and only five have played more than one true road game — there’s plenty unproven.
But in overall records, Missouri is ahead of only 5-8 Vanderbilt. Going against 10-3 Georgia, which has only seen its top scorer finish above 20 points three times, will be a barometer for whether the Tigers will be able to pick up the wins they need for a respectable SEC showing.”
https://www.stltoday.com/sports/col...cle_dc32409a-abd9-11ee-8898-0b35826fb5fb.html
2024 Recruiting
2025 Recruiting
UGA WBB
Gadogs.com: Georgia Set for SEC Road Matchup at Arkansas
https://georgiadogs.com/news/2024/1/5/womens-basketball-georgia-set-for-sec-road-matchup-at-arkansas
Bryan Eagle: A&M women go cold late as Georgia wins SEC opener
“They didn’t get any transition layups and we were boxing them out,” Georgia coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson said. “That is their game. They are a transition nightmare and they crash those offensive boards. The defense is why we won the game. Our defense dictated everything.”
“I played for her for three years, and I got recruited by her,” Nicholson said. “At the end of the day, I just knew I had to be locked in for my team. We had to get the win. That was just my mindset going forward. I think Joni loves it over there and I hope she has a successful season.”
https://theeagle.com/sports/college...cle_16913cfe-ab72-11ee-9dfb-6f1116ae78f0.html
ABH: 'Always near and dear': Joni Taylor returns to Athens with Texas A&M for SEC opener
Taylor was welcomed back warmly. She said that when they landed at the airport Wednesday people were waiting with signs. Same scene when they arrived at their hotel and at shoot-around today.
'Always near and dear': Joni Taylor returns to Athens with Texas A&M for SEC opener
Joni Taylor returned to Athens on Thursday night with Texas A&M. Taylor spent 11 years at Georgia before heading to the Lone Star State in 2022.
www.onlineathens.com
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