Georgia sent packing by Saint Louis in first-round NCAA tourney blowout
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Georgia picked a really bad time to have a really bad night defensively.
The No. 8 seed Bulldogs were shredded by No. 9 seed Saint Louis late Thursday night in Buffalo, becoming the first SEC team to exit this NCAA Tournament after a 102-77 first-round lambasting in the Midwest Region that ended a promising season with a thud.
Only once this season had Georgia, which finished at 22-11, given up the dreaded century mark in points. It happened way back on the first Saturday of the new year, when Auburn hung exactly 100 points on the Bulldogs. The big difference was that day in Athens was that Georgia was able to overcome its defensive failures because it put up 104 points itself in the wild 4-point victory.
That was the SEC opener for the Dawgs and fast-forward a few months to Thursday night, when it all really mattered, and the Georgia defense was nowhere to be found again. But on this night in upstate New York, the Bulldogs couldn’t keep up offensively, shooting just 35% from the field and 26% (10 of 39) from 3-point territory.
Jeremiah Wilkinson was superb off the bench for Georgia, pouring in 30 points in 30 minutes. But that wasn’t nearly enough to keep the Dawgs in the game, as they got a meager 24 points combined from their starting lineup, with Marcus Millender leading the way with 13 points among the Georgia starters. But even he was just 5 of 15 from the field.
Meanwhile, Saint Louis (29-5), which finished first in the Atlantic 10 during the regular season, blazed away with 58% shooting in the late Thursday hours in Buffalo. The Billikens shared the ball really well, too, registering 27 assists to Georgia’s 9. Saint Louis led 49-32 at halftime and kept the punishment going in the final 20 minutes.
Dion Brown led the offensive outburst for Saint Louis with 18 points, and the Billikens got a whopping 43 points from their bench. And when it wasn’t making shots, Saint Louis was beating Georgia badly on the glass and getting more shots, as the Billikens advanced to Saturday’s second-round matchup against No. 1 seed Michigan.
It was a bitter end to a strong regular season, and the NCAA Tournament clunker followed Georgia’s SEC Tournament one-and-done, as the Bulldogs were upset in the second round of the SEC tourney by Ole Miss.
With that, Georgia suffered the indignity of being the first SEC team to lose at this year’s NCAA Tournament. It was a very forgettable postseason for Mike White’s team after posting a solid 10-8 SEC record during the regular season. Unfortunately for White and the Dawgs, that success didn’t translate to the conference tournament, and it certainly didn’t on Thursday night with everything at stake.
With Georgia out of the picture from the SEC’s list of 10 NCAA Tournament teams, here is what the Kalshi market currently sees involving those SEC teams still alive to make the Sweet 16:
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
