Georgia tops ETSU with season-best 3-point shooting performance

Georgia Basketball defeated East Tennessee State 62-47 on Sunday afternoon at Stegeman Coliseum. The game represented a rematch of 2021’s matchup with the Buccaneers, and in many ways was a microcosm of how far the program has come with Mike White as the head coach.

Last year, ETSU walked out of Athens with an 86-84 win on a 3-pointer with 9 seconds remaining in the game. David Sloan, who hit the game winner, went for 24 points and hit four of the team’s 13 3-pointers. This year with increased emphasis on the defensive end of the court, the opportunities for the Buccaneers were few and far between, making just two of 16 attempts from outside.

Kario Oquendo (16 points), Justin Hill (14) and Terry Roberts (12) all ended the game for Georgia in double-figures, the fifth time in seven outings that Roberts has hit the 10-point mark. He led Georgia in minutes playing 32:05 while Hill contributed 28:37 off the bench. Roberts also had a team-high six rebounds for the Bulldogs while Hill was second with five. Meanwhile, Oquendo hit four 3-pointers to lead the way for Georgia behind the arc.

“Good win for us – could’ve gone either way. The final score wasn’t really indicative of how competitive the game was, in my opinion. ETSU is very good. I thought their attention to detail defensively was really high. (Jalen) Haynes was a handful for sure. The young guards are really good and play hard. They had us searching,” White said in his postgame press conference. “(We) played a bunch of different guys. I thought we had really good contributions from a few guys off the bench. Justin Hill continues to progress. I thought both bigs that came off the bench did a bunch, not necessarily showing in the final box score as much as it could have. I thought we responded to the halftime chat defensively. I thought we were pretty sharp defensively in the second half, probably our best second half, so that’s a positive. I thought Jaxon Etter gave us some good stuff, some energy. And lastly, I’m really happy for Jailyn Ingram. It’s been a long road for him in getting healthy and he’s been through a ton of adversity in his career, worked really hard. He’s had a great attitude. Our guys love him. They rally around him. He goes 0-for-1 in four minutes, he’s plus-nine, that’s unheard of. It kinds of speaks to the energy he gave us, the overall pickup of the aura in the gym. I thought he was tremendous.”

Georgia trailed early in the game after East Tennessee State went on a 12-0 run, but a 14-0 run from Georgia put the Bulldogs ahead by 10 with over five minutes to play in the first half. Oquendo played a big part in the run, hitting a trio of 3-pointers while also making a layup. Jabri Abdur-Rahim also contributed a 3-pointer to give Georgia the lead at the 8:41 mark, one that the Bulldogs never lost.

UGA went into the half up four and found itself tied just over four minutes out of the locker room in the second half, but the Bulldogs got things together with a 12-0 run and eventually led by as many as 16 down the stretch. Georgia both shot and made a season-high number of 3-pointers in the win going 9-of-30 from deep.

Georgia got Jailyn Ingram some action again, the first time that he’s seen the court since tearing his ACL last season. Ingram missed his only field goal attempt and committed a foul while also coming up with a steal in just over four minutes of action.

“I just thought we were flat. When you do put him out there for the first time, you’re experimenting—just to be honest and Jailyn knows that, we talked about that. You’re evaluating him and how he handles it because he didn’t have an intrasquad, a closed scrimmage, an exhibition. So, you’re tooth-and-nail against East Tennessee State—close game, early second half—and one of the guys on staff suggested it,” White said. “The last few days he’s gotten to the point where we said, ‘We’re about ready to give him a chance in a game.’ Athletically, from a conditioning standpoint, he’s looked better and better, and this happened to be the one. It could’ve gone the other way of course, but he was an inspiration to his teammates. I thought he was probably the biggest factor in the game.”

The Bulldogs, now 5-2 on the season and one win away from tying last season’s win total, are back in action on Wednesday with another game at Stegeman Coliseum. Georgia hosts the Hampton Pirates at 7:00 p.m. ET on SEC Network+ as the second of four games in a 10-day stretch that started on Sunday. Georgia will also play Florida A&M (Friday, December 2nd) at home and at Georgia Tech (Tuesday, December 6th) before taking an extended break for players to take final exams.