Bulldogs fall to No. 21 Missouri, 87-74

ATHENS, Ga. — The Georgia Bulldogs (16-10, 4-9 SEC) fell to the No. 21 Missouri Tigers (19-6, 8-4 SEC), 87-74, on Saturday evening at Stegeman Coliseum. Three scorers reached double figures headlined by freshman forward Asa Newell’s 23 point-10 rebound double-double.

Fast Facts
• After Newell’s 23 point-performance, sophomore guards Silas Demary Jr. and Blue Cain followed up with 16 and 14 points, respectively.
• Newell posted his sixth double-double of the season and his third with 20+ points.
• RJ Godfrey matched his season high three blocks, doing so in back-to-back games after setting his season mark in his previous outing against Texas A&M.
• Newell tallied three blocks against the Tigers, marking his fifth game with three or more blocks this season.
• Demary Jr. knocked down three 3-pointers on the evening, marking back-to-back games with three or more triples and his fourth of the season.

Key Quote
“It was actually one of our better offensive SEC games,” head coach Mike White said. “You get a few stops, that 74 might be 85, just couldn’t collect stops. Our guards did a poor job overall helping our bigs rebound the basketball. They had 3-point shooters literally get their own rebound. You don’t see that much, so just not a great effort there. That said again, the positives are that we needed some better things offensively.”

Up Next
The Bulldogs will travel and face No. 1 Auburn on Saturday, Feb. 22 with tipoff set at 4 p.m. ET at Neville Arena. The game will be televised on ESPN2.

POST-GAME NOTES
• With tonight’s result, the all-time series between the two programs is now 11-11. Georgia defeated Missouri twice last season, a 75-68 win at home during the regular season and a 64-59 win in the opening round of the SEC Tournament.
• Starting Streak – Georgia started Cain, Leffew, Demary Jr., Godfrey and Newell this afternoon, the group’s fifth start as a unit.
• Super Silas – Silas Demary Jr. played all 40 minutes of the contest, the first time a Georgia player has played every minute of a game this season. The sophomore added 16 points and four assists to his career-high minutes played.
• Amazing Asa – Asa Newell recorded his sixth double double of the season with a 23-point, 10-board afternoon. Four of the freshman’s double doubles have come in conference play.
• Wild Watch – Georgia had a 1-0 lead before tip-off from an administrative technical against Missouri. More, there were 21 lead changes in the game.

POST-GAME QUOTES

Georgia Head Coach Mike White

On Dakota Leffew…
“I don’t know where his pain tolerance is, you know how much he’s hurt. I don’t know. He hasn’t practiced much, but there’s so many other ways you can affect the game. We’ve got to rebound. And it was actually one of our better offensive SEC games. You get a few stops that 74 might be 85, just couldn’t collect stops. Our guards did a poor job overall helping our bigs rebound the basketball. They had 3-point shooters literally get their own rebound. You don’t see that much, so just not a great effort there. That said again, the positives are that we needed some better things offensively. 15-9, if I’m not mistaken, 15-to-9 shot 50 percent against a really good defense. Only got 10 offensive rebounds, but again, shot a good percentage. But 18, three assists, turnovers. For those guys, that’s what they do. They’re fantastic with that statistic. Their 17 offensive rebounds were probably the biggest stat of the game.”

On second half defense…
“I don’t think it was our best effort game, but I wouldn’t question their efforts right until I watch the film, and there might be a possession or two. These are 40-minute games, they are long games. We’ve kind of morphed into playing a few guys heavier minutes than we were a month ago. Out of necessity, really trying to play game. And Silas [Demary Jr.] left a lot of effort out there on the floor. RJ Godfrey did as well. I thought Blue [Cain] played really hard. I mean Asa Newell, we’re down double figures late, and he’s playing like it’s the Super Bowl. That’s who he is. We need more consistent effort like that from some of our some of our older guys. He’s a true freshman and he showed a lot of character today, as he always does.”

On what the staff can do to help with second half performances…
“I wonder about it a lot. Consistently, every day, talk about every day, try a few different things, and we’ll try something else. Have a long conversation tomorrow. We’ll talk about it Monday. At halftime, we tried watching positive, we tried watching negative. We tried not watching. We tried just talking. We tried not talking. We tried giving our guys a lot of time just on their own. We tried giving them no time on their own. We met in the middle; this is a mystery. I haven’t coached a team that struggled this much early second half. I can’t put my finger on it. I’m going to get more feedback from our guys. That’ll be the next trial and error process. Our young guys in the locker room, we want them to talk about it, but at halftime, trust me, we aren’t celebrating winning at half. We go in here and watch defensively the mistakes that we made. And the message is clear, we’ve got to get better in the second half defensively to be a good SEC team, and early second half, and we weren’t very good defensively.”

On the impact of the conference schedule…
“I think the grind has an impact on everybody. Everybody at this level. We’ve also had two or three that could have gone the other way with just one thing going differently. We wouldn’t be talking about the grind; we would be talking about how good of a position we are in. This one was big, and our guys knew it was big.”

On the team’s transition defense…
“With this match up, that was our defensive key for this game. Trying to make these guys who are elite in transition and in space and turn people over. So, they’re in space a lot, and they’ve got guys that can shoot and guys who can drive it.”

On controlling the team’s frustration going into the next game…
“I wish we would have played more frustrated. Really the entire second half defensively. So, if a tough week of practice can get some more out of some guys in terms of their intensity and mental and physical toughness, and our ability to fight through fatigue and get stops and get rebounds, if you’re frustrated that’s fine. As long as you continue to be a good teammate, be connected with teammates, continue to do what we’re asking to do, but we’ve got to play more frustrated.”

#10 | RJ Godfrey | Jr. | Forward

On the result…
“Yeah, it’s not a good feeling knowing that the other team played harder. They were getting every 50-50 ball and then they outrebounded us. It’s just, losing sucks, especially this way, knowing that you can play harder and control the game through effort.”

On Missouri’s 15-0 run in the second half…
“I don’t exactly know. We got to go back and watch tape, but I think we weren’t as detailed as we were in the first half. But we just got to play harder with what it came down to.”

On points in transition…
“I think the biggest thing is communication. We didn’t do a good job of, I mean, I felt like we communicated, but it was just listening and taking it right. And I know I gave up an early one after I scored, but I think it’s just turning and spreading and talking, that’s the biggest thing.”

On Missouri’s offensive success in the second half…
“I think again, it was just our details right there. I mean, I have to go back and watch it. So right now, we just walked in from the game. I’m still very irritated about it, but I just don’t think we’re detailed, and we didn’t play hard, that’s all I got, really.”

#14 | Asa Newell | Fr. | Forward

On Mississippi State’s response to Georgia scoring runs…
“We just got to play harder. A lot of our focus has to go up. Our second half, we have to watch that film and see what we did wrong.”

On the Mississippi State offense…
“Yeah, I just want to bring as much energy to my team as possible. That’s just my personality, that I play with a lot of fire. I’m just trying to play with a lot of fire tonight.”

On the defensive performance…
“There’s definitely a lot of talking. I really don’t have an answer for you on why we aren’t playing the way that we’re playing in the second half, it’s just our level of focus and our details. We might just take a little step back from the second half, but we got to keep on attacking and playing hard.”

On the team’s preparation before Auburn…
“Rest, take an off day, recover. The mental side of this basketball game is very serious, so rest, recover. Watch that film, just see where we have holes. We just got to fill them through practice.”