Georgia 76, Auburn 64: White’s Plucky ‘Dawgs Upend #22 Auburn

Jan 5, 2023 - 2:52 AM

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First, a confession. Perhaps you noticed, or perhaps you didn’t, that this site assiduously avoided covering UGA mens basketball in any serious fashion for most of last season. It didn’t just slip our minds. It was a conscious decision, a bitter decision. You see, we wrote basketball posts for awhile, but they weren’t fun to create and they weren’t fun to read. Because UGA basketball in the waning days of the Tom Crean era wasn’t fun. It was a torturous trudge toward a bad ending that we all saw coming months away, not least of all the players who abandoned ship long before the 2021-2022 season began.

So rather than write basketball posts that would be infuriating to type and depressing to read, we elected to focus on other things. Football, golf, equestrian, literally anything in which someone wearing red and black could beat someone wearing orange, until such time as Georgia mens basketball became fun again.

Folks, it’s fun again.

Mike White’s Bulldogs shot the lights out from behind the arc and got to the charity stripe, pouring it on then holding strong to ambush Bruce Pearl’s ranked Auburn squad 76-64. Terry Roberts led a balanced UGA attack with 26 points and Karoo Oquendo chipped in 17.

It helped that the ‘Dawgs shot 40% from three point range (6 of 15) and made 22 of 32 free throws. While the Red and Black were outrebounded 44-39, they managed to do enough work on the boards to get the job done. The same could be said for ball security, as the ‘Dawgs turned it over 11 times, but got 11 turnovers back.

The victory moves the Hoop Hounds to 11-3 on the season, and 1-0 in the SEC for the first time since the 2016-17 season. They’ll travel to Gainesville this Saturday with a chance to take down Coach White’s former team and go to 2-0 in conference. It still feels as if this team is going to break my heart at some point in the not too distant future. But for now there’s hope and victory and….fun.

Go ‘Dawgs!!!