Welcome to the Bulldawg Illustrated Hoops Report. I’m not quite sure what it’s like at the moment. The events from Monday night are still fresh on our minds as it takes a long time for the pain to go away. Luckily, we have the Hoop Dawgs here to try and make things better.

 

While the football team couldn’t beat the refs and the opponent on Monday night, the basketball team had no trouble destroying a Bama team that looked overmatched from the outset. Their freshman had a good night, but he was a one-man team. No one else did anything and the Dawgs cruised to a 65-46 victory. Yante Maten’s 26 points and 11 rebounds lead everyone. Rayshaun Hammonds and Derek Ogbeide poured in 13 and eight respectively to round out the leading scorers.

 

While UGA did struggle offensively, a trend is developing I hope. In three SEC games, the Dawgs are playing excellent defense holding all three teams under their scoring average. Great defense will win an extra game or two, at least, every year. So if this keeps up the Dawgs have a chance to post a really good resume come tournament time.

 

Up next is Mizzou. At the beginning of the year, this game looked a lot tougher as Mizzou had what many people consider to be the second best player in the NCAA. However, that freshman All-American is out two more months with an injury and this game looks like a possible one for the Dawgs to steal. However, it won’t be easy.

 

Mizzou is averaging around 79 points a game and has four players averaging nine points or more. So they can spread the ball around. That generally makes playing D much tougher when you have a number of guys that can put the ball in the basket. While I still think the Dawgs will continue to play solid D, we’ve got play much better offense to win this game. We’re averaging around 65 points a game in SEC play and that most likely won’t get it done Wednesday night. I know I sound like a broken record, but we’ve got to get a third scorer to start stepping up in games. Whether it’s Hammonds, Ogbeide, Turtle Jackson, Jordan Harris or any other Dawgs, we need three guys to post double digits every game out.

 

The game Wednesday night is big because it’s a chance to win a game that looked like a loser in the preseason. That said, even without the freshman phenom, this won’t be easy. They’re 11-4 overall. So things are going just fine without him. If the Dawgs somehow get this game, that gives them a little breathing room. Right now it appears the Dawgs would probably make the NCAA tourney or at worst be one of the first four out based on what Joe Lunardi shows. So putting this in the win column would really put UGA in the driver’s seat and give them an outside shot at a 5-1 start in the SEC as the next two are winnable as well. A loss puts us right back to work with no room to spare. Let’s find a way to get it down! And Go Dawgs!!

 

---

 

 

[pt_view id=”880f08db2j”]