Georgia falls short to Ole Miss in SEC Tournament, 76-72

NASHVILLE, Tenn. – The Georgia Bulldogs (22-10) fell to the Ole Miss Rebels (14-19) on Thursday evening at Bridgestone Arena, 76-72.

FAST FACTS
• Georgia finished 10-8 in SEC play and entered today’s game as the No.7 seed in the SEC Tournament, its highest since being No. 6 in 2016.
• Georgia is 78-50 all-time versus Ole Miss, including a 9-3 advantage in SEC Tournament meetings.
• Sophomore Kanon Catchings led the Bulldogs with 19 points. Marcus “Smurf” Millender tallied 11 points, while Kareem Stagg, Dylan James and Jeremiah Wilkinson chipped in eight apiece.
• After trailing by as many as 23 points in the second half, Georgia went on a 20–2 run over a 4:36 span. • A steal and a three-point jumper from Catchings cut the deficit to five with 8:09 left to play.
• A dunk from James trimmed the margin to two with five seconds remaining.
• A pair of free throws from Ole Miss gave them the win.

KEY QUOTES

Head Coach Mike White

On the factors that led to the comeback…
“Creating turnovers, just getting out, extending our pressure. I thought the way we started the second half, a couple minutes into the second half, our energy level just elevated without having to make a shot. It seemed like early on with our offensive struggles and Ole Miss’ defensive prowess, two games in a row, they defended at a really high level. They were elite last night in watching that game. Shot selection led to it, too. You have a couple empty trips. You go one to 12 from three early on in the game. We just put our head down against a really solid, physical, disciplined defense that swarms the basketball. We kind of went rogue there, three or four possessions, jump up in the paint, try to make something happen, throw some bad stuff up at the rim. Then it’s like the rim got smaller for us when we had those empty possessions. We never played hard defensively in the first half, but weren’t able to create those turnovers that we did early second half, which got us going, got us in space, forced a low turnover team to 15 turnovers, played really, really hard down the stretch, gave ourselves a chance. It’s a resilient group, down 23, have a chance to steal it. Did a lot of good things and didn’t shoot the ball particularly well from three or from the foul line. Credit to Ole Miss, they’ve got momentum and they’re playing really well.”

UP NEXT
Georgia awaits its seeding for the NCAA Tournament. The committee will announce the selected teams on Sunday, March 15 at 6:00 p.m ET.