Georgia
Bulldogs do it again, take down No. 17 Oklahoma
Lightning struck again for Georgia on Saturday night.
For the second time in five days, the Bulldogs welcomed a top-25 team to Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday night. Once again, Georgia (14-2, 2-1 SEC) came out on top, taking down No. 17 Oklahoma (13-3, 0-3) by a score of 72-62.
“Shoot-around was okay today, so the handling of success from the other day I thought was good, not great,” head coach Mike White said after the game. “If you want to be in the upper half of this league, you’ve got to respond to negativity as we’ve talked about and positivity. Pretty good, but not great. Got to be better there… I loved our halftime response, though. I thought we had some really good individual responses as well throughout the game. Played with a lot of toughness, especially defensively down the stretch.”
The win marks the first time Georgia has defeated ranked opponents in back-to-back games since beating No. 25 Kentucky and No. 21 LSU in 2007.
The Bulldogs showed no early signs of a hangover from Tuesday night’s win over No. 6 Kentucky. Georgia jumped out to an early 17-7 lead highlighted by a thunderous slam from sophomore guard Silas Demary Jr.
“That was amazing. That’s going to be top 10 tonight,” freshman forward Asa Newell said. “He really has sneaky bounce. For him just to do that and turn the corner just brings a lot of energy to us.”
The lead stood at 19-10 with 11:46 left in the first half. Oklahoma then closed the half on a 26-14 run to take a 36-33 lead into halftime.
Georgia shot 44 percent in the first half and 1-of-9 on 3-pointers. The Bulldogs also had nine turnovers to just four assists.
“The coaches didn’t say anything to us. They let us handle it,” freshman forward Somto Cyril said. “We know who we are. We know what we can do. We just talked to each other on how to handle the adversity.”
Georgia scored the first six points of the second period to take a three-point lead. The Bulldogs then took the lead for good at the 10:36 mark, using four runs of at least 5-0 to keep the Sooners at bay.
The Bulldogs used second-half contributions from a pair of bench players to get the job done.
Dakota Leffew poured in 12 second-half points. Reserve forward Justin Abson came in for six minutes and contributed four points, two rebounds, and a block.
“He was a huge get for us out of the portal. I mean, we were fired up, you know, when he committed to us,” White said. “He’s got as good a feel and basketball IQ, temperament, as anyone on our team. Not surprising what he did offensively. I mean, he’s able to block a shot too, which he did a lot, you know, in the Sun Belt these last couple years. But just a winning player, a character guy, always ready.”
The Bulldogs rode their defense down the stretch. Oklahoma shot just 31 percent in the second half, scoring only 26 points. Georgia outscored the Sooners 39-26 in the final 20 minutes.
The key point came when the Bulldogs went on a 10-2 run over a period of just over four minutes, taking a 63-54 lead with 4:26 left.
“Late in the game we were able to be switchable with Asa at the five,” White said. “Those last few possessions, playing four guards. Silas Demary, I think, was just really good from the tip. For 40 minutes defensively was fantastic. We got good speed and length in the backcourt. We were pretty dialed in with guarding the bounce. They had some deep-paint touches that we were able to alter and block, of course, with the length that we’ve got at the rim. Allowed too much rhythm, three attempts from their shooters.”
Georgia gets no reward for its recent success. Its next contest is a Tuesday road trip to Tennessee, currently ranked No. 1 in the country. The Bulldogs then return home to face No. 2 Auburn next Saturday.
With that slate ahead, White knows there is no time to celebrate an acheivement that Georgia hasn’t seen in nearly two decades.
“The response for a young team after beating No. 6, it was pretty good,” White said. “It needs to be great, you know? Coming into this week, it’s got to be great.”
– Georgia is now 3-2 against ranked teams this season after being 0-5 against ranked opponents last season. This is the first time Georgia has three wins against ranked opponents in a season since 2017-18.
– The Bulldogs had eight blocks against Oklahoma, its most in a conference game under White.
– Newell scored in double-digits for the 15th time in 16 games.
– Half of Georgia’s 72 points came in the paint.
– Demary led the team in rebounds (8), assists (4), and steals (3).
– Georgia held Oklahoma to season-lows in points (62), field goal percentage (38.1 percent), and 3-point percentage (25.9 percent).
– Georgia out-rebounded Oklahoma 40-32, the 14th time this season the Bulldogs have beaten their opponent on the glass.
Subscribe to the Clarion Ledger
If you are not a subscriber, consider subscribing now. You will also get access to the Clarion Ledger’s E-Edition, the electronic replica of the print publication along with print archives. The E-edition is also available on our app.
USA Today Network
Kirk Fordice-like Rick Jackson is sounding a whole lot like Daniel Kirkwood Fordice as he tries to be elected Georgia’s next governor.
Fordice came out of nowhere — actually, Vicksburg is somewhere but you know what I mean — in 1991 to become a two-term Mississippi governor.
He had money but nothing like Jackson, a billionaire businessman who’s also trying to emerge from nowhere politically to win Georgia’s top office.
“The establishment hated Trump, because they couldn’t control him. They are going to hate me,” Jackson says in an ad for Georgia’s Republican Primary on May 19, sounding like one of my favorite Mississippi governors — Fordice, because of his unpredictable personality (he could vilify or charm you, all in one sentence), not his politics. He died in 2004 of cancer.
I stood by a cafe entrance one morning, waiting to cover a Fordice speech. When he appeared, I stuck out my hand to shake his. “I’m not shaking your damn hand. You’re part of the problem down there (referring to the newspaper),” he told me, smiling and moving on.
Jackson rose to become one of economic giant-Georgia’s wealthiest people. He came from Atlanta’s rough midtown area, ending up in the foster care system. He left college due to poor financial circumstances.
The 71-year-old Jackson wormed his way into the dynamic city’s business scene in the late 1970s, mostly of the healthcare variety with mixed success before starting a workforce staffing and services company and later an antibiotics manufacturing plant. He turned those businesses into billion-dollar enterprises.
“It’s God’s money,” he said in rural Blakely, and he’s been charitable with it.
Jackson doesn’t try to hide his vast wealth. His family lives in a 48,000-square-foot mansion at Cumming, a place of nearly 100,000 people near Atlanta in Forsyth County, which once promoted its almost all-white population as a virtue.
Atlanta Journal-Constitution columnist Bill Torpy recently wrote that Jackson will spend a ton of his own money in seeking another mansion, the one occupied by Georgia’s governor. Torpy noted that present Lt. Gov. Burt Jones was once heavily favored to win the primary race, but he’s fallen behind Jackson’s bold money bid.
“The one-time front-runner in the Republican primary (Jones) has been relegated to No. 2, the result of a $100 million Mack truck running him over.
Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare tycoon, a man with a sly smile and reptilian gaze, is the guy driving that truck,” Torpy wrote.
The GOP field includes Secretary of State Brad Raffensberger, who spurned Trump’s demand to find 11,780 votes that would’ve allowed him to win Georgia in 2020.
Fordice was effective with some bombastic rhetoric during his run for governor, but I don’t remember it reaching the histrionic level employed by Jackson. In a major ad blitz, often referencing (Georgia college student) Laken Riley’s murderer, Jackson promises that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will be “deported or departed … any questions?”
In another ad, Jackson growled, “Like President Trump, I don’t owe anybody anything, and like you, I’m sick of career politicians.”
Fordice spent only $1 million to get himself elected Mississippi’s governor. He somewhat sneaked up on the establishment, riding no escalator to the first floor of his Vicksburg concrete river mats-contracting office to declare his intentions. Who could ever forget his announcement seeking the governorship that ran on page 5 of the Clarion Ledger?
Recent polling ahead of Georgia’s May primaries for governor shows the eventual Republican nominee faces a strong Democrat in the November general election, most likely former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms. That’ll require another whole pot of money.
— Mac Gordon, a native of McComb, is a retired Mississippi newspaperman. He can be reached at macmarygordon@gmail.com.
Gulfstream recently announced a $5 million investment in Georgia education, welcoming students and leaders to its Savannah headquarters.
-
News20 minutes agoShip operators involved in Baltimore bridge collapse charged with misconduct and obstruction
-
New York2 hours agoDeadly Gang Feud Left Bystander Paralyzed in Brooklyn
-
Detroit, MI2 hours agoDetroit leads northern border in drug seizures, federal report says
-
San Francisco, CA3 hours agoCalifornia ‘Fans First’ bill aims to cap skyrocketing concert ticket prices
-
Dallas, TX3 hours agoRanking Every Cowboys Position Group By Overall Talent and Depth
-
Miami, FL3 hours agoSevere weather, flash flooding possible in South Florida on Tuesday
-
Boston, MA3 hours agoCanvas reportedly reaches deal with hackers for stolen data – Boston News, Weather, Sports | WHDH 7News
-
Denver, CO3 hours agoFormer Denver Bronco Craig Morton, who became the first quarterback to start Super Bowl for 2 franchises, dies at 83