Silas Demary set to return for sophomore season at Georgia
Georgia Basketball’s offseason hinged largely on freshman point guard Silas Demary and his decision on what’s next for him. A choice has now been made, and Demary will be back in Athens for another season.
A freshman this past season, the Raleigh, N.C. native started all but one game for the Bulldogs. He was the last remaining first-year player in the SEC for that statement to be true about, only having it end on Senior Night as Mike White went with the team’s five eldest players instead in a celebratory manner.
Demary earned a spot on the SEC All-Freshman team as he averaged 9.7 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.5 assists per game, leading the team in steals with 52. Demary’s top scoring game came against Kentucky as he poured in 22 in the loss to the Wildcats, one of his 10 double-figure scoring performances in league play including four straight in the January stretch of Tennessee, South Carolina, Kentucky and LSU. He added two more in the NIT, averaging 11.3 points per game in four tournament contests.
“I haven’t had a freshman any more physically and mentally tough than him,” Georgia head coach Mike White said about Demary. “By the end of the year if you ask me I might say he’s No. 1. He’s definitely in the conversation. His confidence and his toughness too, it’s a mixture of both. Takes a really tough, scary fall and that was before he stepped in to make some of those free throws late. Continues to help us get stops defending the glass, flying around. The ball security too for a true freshman is pretty impressive.”
“He epitomizes maturity and toughness for a freshman,” White added on a separate occasion after Georgia’s near-upset of Tennessee, having talked about that maturity multiple times throughout the season already. “His defensive rebounding, his command of the ball, getting downhill, playing through contact … It’s unheard of for a true freshman playing against a top-5 defense in the country and not turn it over playing the minutes he’s playing. And also, we’re play through him a lot, trying to keep the ball in the middle of the court and try to middle ball screen a bunch. His usage rate is so high, and to have zero turnovers speaks to his mental and physical toughness.”
Demary was a late addition to Georgia’s signing class for 2023, originally being locked in with USC before asking out of his National Letter of Intent. Ranked the No. 75 player overall and No. 17 point guard in the country (No. 44 nationally/No. 9 point guard per On3), Demary chose the Dawgs in April.
Demary’s return gives Georgia a foundation around which it can build. Five players have announced plans to enter the transfer portal (Jalen DeLoach, Justin Hill, M.A. Moncrieffe, Jabri Abudr-Rahim and Mari Jordan) while five remain on the roster (Demary, Frank Anselem-Ibe, Blue Cain, Dylan James and RJ Melendez). Georgia has seven spots in total open, losing three players to graduation, but the Bulldogs will add five-star freshman signee Asa Newell this offseason ahead of White’s third year in Athens.
