Article by Brent Warnken
Trey Thompkins and Travis Leslie scored 17 points apiece and the Georgia Bulldogs surprised No. 18 Vanderbilt with a 72-58 triumph. Get NCAA Basketball tickets and see Leslie make his foul shots. The Bulldogs (10-11, 2-6) appeared bound for their fourth consecutive Southeastern Conference loss when they were down in the second half, but Georgia bounced back and shot 53.2 percent for the game.
Georgia snapped a three-game losing streak while handing the Commodores their second loss in the last 13 games. Georgia first-year coach Mark Fox told the press, “Even after we didn’t start off the second half well, the defense improved and held us together.”
Jermaine Beal led Vanderbilt with 21 points and Brad Tinsley added 18. A.J. Ogilvy led the Commodores (17-5, 6-2) with nine rebounds and recorded six points, ending a streak of scoring in double figures in 12 straight games. Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said, “We didn’t get a very good night from any of our big guys.” The coach continued to say his team entered the contest shooting around 50 percent, but acknowledged they couldn’t “get one to drop” against the Bulldogs. Stallings also praised Beal and Tinsley. He stated, “Brad and Jermaine were really good, but no one else could get anything going.”
The Bulldogs coughed up the ball 13 times in the first half (they finished the game with 21 turnovers) and trailed 36-28 early in the second half before rallying behind Leslie, who scored 13 of his 17 points after halftime. Georgia was the worst team in the league with 117 turnovers in their first seven SEC games.
The Commodores had big leads of 36-28 and 39-32 early in the second half before the Bulldogs reclaimed the lead with a 10-2 scoring burst. During that span, Georgia’s Dustin Ware and Ricky McPhee buried 3s. Leslie then knocked down two free throws with 12:01 left of regulation, giving the Bulldogs a 42-41 advantage. Leslie made two more free throws, which gave Georgia the lead for good at 44-43 with 10:49 left of the game.
Georgia’s offense was composed in the second half and they took apart Vanderbilt’s man defense to make 14 of 21 shots. Stallings admitted that the Commodores’ defense was deplorable the last 15 minutes of the game. Tinsley concurred with his coach when he claimed, “We fell apart defensively.”
After Vincent Williams and McPhee swished back-to-back 3-pointers, Georgia took a 68-54 lead. The Bulldogs defense stopped the Commodores from its first 4-1 start in SEC road games since 1966-67 season. Thompkins said, “We pride ourselves on defense, and when we don’t play defense the right way it bothers us. So tonight we came out and put extra emphasis on it. We were going to defend to the best of our ability, and we did so. We worked so hard the whole game and we finally got one.”
Although Vanderbilt plays Tennessee on Feb. 9 in Nashville, Tinsley said the Commodores were not looking past the Bulldogs to their in-state rival. Tinsley added that his team has to get past the loss.
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