Georgia overcomes 17-point deficit on road to beat Florida State
Georgia Basketball overcame a 17-point deficit in the final 6:30 of action to win 68-66 over Florida State Wednesday night in Tallahassee. The Bulldogs saw Justin Hill make a jumper with 1.5 seconds left, allowing Florida State only an opportunity for a heave from beyond half court, to give them the lead and the win in their first-ever ACC/SEC Challenge game.
Hill, who hit a game-winner last season against LSU, finished with 13 points on the night, one of four Georgia players to reach double-figures. Freshman Silas Demary led the way with 15 while Jabri Abdur-Rahim and RJ Melendez each poured in 12.
Melendez also managed to lead the team in rebounding on a night in which the Bulldogs saw big man Russel Tchewa ejected from the game early in the second half as the Illinois transfer came up with 11 boards. It’s just the second time Melendez has brought down double-digit rebounds, first in a Georgia uniform. In each of the two outings he’s done so, he finished with a double-double.
“What a response. We talk about responding to adversity every day in practice. We miss a drill and we’ve got to get on the line and there’s an accountability for it. We say, ‘Hey, how are we going to respond? How are we going to respond?’ Offensively, when you miss three or four shots in a row, how do you respond? Down 17 with 7:30, we had that conversation again,” Georgia head coach Mike White said after the game. “Let’s play with pride. One of the guys, I think it was Jabri said, ‘No, no. There’s still time to win this game.’ We said, ‘Obviously yes, but right now, we’ve got to go on a big run. We’ve need a stop and a score, a stop and a score. How are we going to respond right now?’ That is the epitome of a major response, a 24-5 run to finish it out against a program that wins games like that down the stretch.”
“For us to come in here and get that one the way we did, it speaks volumes about the resiliency, mental toughness, the resolve and the connectivity of a team with nine new players,” he added. “It was a huge win for us … Really played well defensively in the first half, we loosened up a little bit in the second half and weren’t quite as sharp. Obviously had a dry spell there offensively and kind of gave in in transition … We had three or four inadvertent fouls there in the second half which got them to the line a little bit quicker, but what a fight from our guys.”
Neither Georgia nor Florida State got it going offensively in the first half. The Bulldogs had an over ten minute stretch in which they were held without a field goal, and at one point the two teams were a combined 2-for-their-last-31 from the field. The Seminoles however managed to make a trio of 3-pointers and forced seven Georgia turnovers to lead 25-21 at the break.
Georgia came out of the gate strong with a couple of nice plays by Demary. He made a 3-pointer and had a 3-point play with an and-one, both of which cut the Bulldog deficit to one. But, with the help of a 7-0 run, Florida State maintained its lead until the 12:27 mark when Hill had his own and-one to tie things at 37.
Things started to spiral from there for Georgia, and it seemed that the Bulldogs were out of it. Florida State hit back-to-back 3-pointers before going on a 10-0 run to jump out to a 14-point lead. That advantage was extended to as many as 17 with another pair of 3-pointers, both made by Darin Green who led all scorers on the night with 21.
As has been the case several times this season though, Georgia didn’t go down without a fight. Sparked by Demary, Melendez, and Abdur-Rahim, the Dawgs took their first lead of the second half with 2:29 to go, up 64-63 on an Abdur-Rahim 3-pointer.
While Florida State responded with a layup to go up one with 2:07 left, Frank Anselem-Ibe hit two clutch free throws with under a minute to go to put Georgia back on top. Then, after the Florida State free throw shooter De’Ante Green made just one of two from the stripe to tie things at 66, Georgia was able to call its final timeout with the shot clock off to set Hill up for the game-winner.
“They switch everything, so we tried to get a couple of bigger guys in those switches, set a couple of go screens and went away from playing in the middle of the floor to make sure we got one up,” White said about the design for the game-winner. “Put J-Hill in space obviously, went at 8 seconds and made a huge play. He had a game winner last year and has a game winner already this year.”
“Hopefully it gives them a bunch of confidence for what we can accomplish if we’re this connected and we respond,” White added. “You keep responding to adversity the way we did and stayed together, but now, how are we going to respond to this one when we play in about 45 hours? We better be really prepared.”
The Georgia victory helped the inaugural intra-conference event end in a 7-7 tie. Other winners from around the SEC included Kentucky and Arkansas with wins over top-10 Miami and Duke teams respectively along with South Carolina (Notre Dame), Missouri (Pitt), Ole Miss (NC State) and Auburn (Virginia Tech).
Georgia, now 4-3 on the season with its second win over a power conference opponent, is back in action on Friday against Mercer. Tip time between the Bulldogs and Bears at Stegeman Coliseum is set for 7:00 p.m. ET on SEC Network+.
