Georgia fighting to keep season alive with love along NIT run

In the span of less than a week, Georgia Basketball made its first appearance in the postseason since 2017, won its first postseason game since 2016 and now has won multiple games in the same postseason for the first time since 1998. No, it’s not the NCAA Tournament that everybody wishes for at the start of a season, but winning in the NIT is the Bulldogs’ way of keeping the 2023-24 team together just a little bit longer.

“I liked our spirit in shoot around and the last couple of days. The NIT is a unique situation for all these teams. We all want to be in that other tournament but are all, to a certain extent, honored to be in the NIT. Our guys exemplify that,” Georgia head coach Mike White said after Sunday’s 72-66 win over Wake Forest.

“It feels great,” Justin Hill added. “My teammates came to play. We got up early. They got on a run, but you know, we didn’t back down. Came back with a run of our own and finished the game out. It feels great.”

Hill led Georgia in scoring with a season-high 21 points. The senior guard came off the bench but played starter-caliber minutes, making three of his seven attempts from 3-point range, six of his 12 attempts overall from the field all while also making some clutch free throws down the stretch.

Hill wasn’t the only one that contributed in the win either. Graduate transfer Noah Thomasson poured in 19 points including five 3-pointers while freshman forward Dylan James scored a career-high 14 points as well.

Only making the Georgia win more impressive: the fact that the Bulldogs were down a trio of contributors with Russel Tchewa, Jabri Abdur-Rahim and RJ Sunahara all sidelined. Both Frank Anselem-Ibe and Jalen DeLoach, along with M.A. Moncrieffe, came up big in the absence of the forwards/center and helped the UGA cause.

“Frank was huge. It didn’t show up in the stat sheet in terms of scoring, but he had eight rebounds, Efton Reed had nine, so to neutralize the 7-foot, 260-pound former five-star kid – Efton Reed is a talent, he’s a really good player and made Wake Forest a lot better this year, but Frank battled, fought for every inch on the court,” White said. “We tried to keep those guys as fresh as possible. I thought M.A. Moncrieffe gave us really valuable minutes at the four and the five. J.J. (Jalen) DeLoach threw his body around and made some really good passes. So we were different in the front court, didn’t play through the fives quite as much, but again, tried to keep them fresh and collectively, I thought our fives played really, really hard.”

“I thought our guys rallied around the fact that we were a little bit shorthanded,” he added. “It’s about as hard as we’ve played in a first half, especially on the road all year. These kids continue to compete in an attempt to lengthen their season. They love playing with one another. They care about one another.”

Needless to say, it was a total team performance in an atmosphere White admitted before the trip winning in was a bit of a “tall task.” Wake Forest entered Sunday with a 17-1 record at Lawerence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum this season. The Demon Deacons walked out of there with another loss.

“It’s awesome,” White said about the love in Georgia’s locker room. “When you have a really good group of kids – and we’ll continue to prioritize that and target those type of young people in the portal and out of high school – it may not always be pretty in terms of execution and we’re not the best rebounding team, we have our deficiencies, but everyone does. That said, a huge positive for us, our guys really enjoy being around each other.”

“This is a big win for our program,” he continued. “First NIT road win since 1998. To go on the road, this is our fifth road win against Power Fives – not neutral, on the road, that’s progress from our program.”

Next up for the Bulldogs is a tough test against Ohio State (22-13, 9-11 Big Ten) on Tuesday (7:00 p.m. ET, ESPN), and if Georgia is going to keep playing beyond this week, it’ll take another win on the road. The second-seeded Buckeyes have gone through an NIT path that’s seen wins over Cornell (88-83) and Virginia Tech (81-73) so far. Both of those came at Value City Arena. UGA hopes to spoil the party for the home squad once again.

“Keep playing. Win or go home. We know what happens if we lose,” Hill said. “We like this group a lot and want to stay with each other as long as we can. Just got to keep winning.”

“Let’s go do the same thing at Ohio State,” White added. “Why not? We’re going to be up in Columbus anyway, might as well compete.”