Welcome to the Bulldawg Illustrated Hoops Reports. It’s like a long day in a short year. And that’s what Hoop Dawg fans have experienced this year. This year is almost over and the Dawgs have one shot left to win two games. No room for error. We must go 2-0 to get an at-large bid to the NCAA tournament. If the Dawgs were to do that, they would have approx nine wins over teams in the projected field of 68. That would rank around second or third in all of the NCAA. Right now, we rank sixth in the nation. So the Dawgs have proven they can play with anyone. Unfortunately, they’ve also lost a few they shouldn’t so it’s basically win-or-go-home with a revenge game on the horizon.
 
 
Last year, the Texas A&M game was a nightmare. With the Dawgs up 13 or so and approximately two minutes left, we lost. It was a perfect storm of forgetting fundamental basketball and getting hosed by the refs. Whether you a Dawg fan or not, that was a poor officiated job and someone at UGA should’ve taken action. I’m not going to rehash because it’s too painful. But this is the kind of game that players don’t forget what happened a year ago. While A&M was ranked 7th in the nation a few weeks back, they’ve been on a roller coaster ever since. Plus, they’ve not been good on the road in SEC play. So the Dawgs have a chance. But there’s even more to play for.
 
 

 
 
Wednesday night is Senior night. And for the second year in a row, we’re honoring an All-Timer. Yante Maten has been a DGD. He may be the SEC player of the Year this season. That would be the second time in five years for one of Coach Fox’s guys. He probably deserves it at this point to be honest. When you look at how anemic the Dawgs offense has been all year, it unbelievable he’s average 19.5 a game. Plus, he was leading the SEC in rebounding at one point. So he mixes it up and ain’t scared either. We need to honor this guy and he deserves all the accolades he gets.
 
 
So, the odds aren’t long. An at-large tournament bid and Mark Fox’s job hang in the balance. The team has to win two straight against really good teams. However, you can’t win them both if you don’t win the first one. So let focus on the Aggies and feting Yante Maten. I’ll be there and I’ll be loud. Go Dawgs!