Georgia Bulldogs

Team Summary

The Georgia Bulldogs (UGA) have gotten off to a slow start to the campaign as they sit at 5-11 through their first 16 games. They are 0-3 in SEC play as well which has really hindered their ability to make the NCAA Tournament. They are tied for last place in the conference with Florida. Currently, they are on a four-game losing streak and have struggled to get anything going their way. Advance to read more of Georgia Bulldogs Stats.

Offensively the team scores 71.0 points a game and allows 74.3 points a game. This is not a bad mark but they have really struggled against above-average opponents. On the season Georgia is shooting 44.5 percent from the field and grabbing 34.7 rebounds per contest. They have also dished off 14.3 assists per game. They are only blocking 2.9 shots per game and are only nabbing 5.3 steals a game.

Kario Oquendo leads the team in scoring at 12.9 points a game. Braelen Bridges grabs 5.9 rebounds per game while Aaron Cook leads the team in assists with 6.6 per game.

Team History

For the 1905-06 season, UGA fielded its inaugural basketball team, which lost both of its games. W. T. Forbes coached the Bulldogs for the first two seasons before being replaced by C. O. Heidler in the fall of 1907. UGA was formerly a part of the Southern Conference before joining the Southeastern Conference as a charter member in 1932. In 1933, they played their debut season in the SEC.

The 1983 NCAA Final Four appearance was the pinnacle of the UGA program’s success. Georgia won an automatic NCAA bid by winning the SEC tournament for the first time in school history, making it its first-ever NCAA tournament trip. Hugh Durham, the winningest coach in UGA basketball history, led an underdog squad into the tournament. On their journey to 1983 Final Four, the Bulldogs upset the incumbent national champion, the University of North Carolina which was headed by Michael Jordan. Georgia was defeated in the national semifinals by eventual NCAA champion North Carolina State University.

Championships Won by the Team

In basketball, Georgia has yet to win a national championship. In 1983, the Bulldogs advanced to the Final Four but were defeated by eventual winner NC State. The last time the Dawgs won the regular-season conference championship was in 1990. The first, and only other time, that they won a regular-season title was in 1931.

Overall, Georgia has won the conference tournament just four times. The first time they won it was in 1917 followed by winning it in 1932, 1983, and for the more recent time in 2008.

Important Team Events

Georgia is pretty laid back as a school when it comes to basketball traditions. They do not have any unique things that they do for the basketball team as the school puts a lot of resources into their football program. You will see full student sections at the basketball games but will not see or hear any special cheers.

The team also does not do anything special while running out onto the floor or in the preseason. In terms of team events, Georgia is as mellow as they come in college basketball.

Top Players

Dominique Wilkins was one of the greatest players in Georgia history and he played fifteen seasons in the NBA following three years at UGA. Wilkins was a member of the Georgia Bulldogs from 1979 to 1982, earning 1,688 points in his career and becoming the school’s only player to have his number retired. Wilkins was a forward with the Atlanta Hawks from 1982 to 1994, scoring 26,668 points in his NBA career and being among the top ten scorers in league history when he retired after the 1998-99 season.

Vern Fleming and Willie Anderson, both former Bulldogs who represented the United States in the Olympic Games, are two additional Bulldogs who have achieved success after leaving UGA. Anderson won a bronze medal in the 1988 Olympics, while Fleming, a point guard, helped lead the United States to a gold medal in the 1984 Olympics. Fleming and Anderson both went on to play in the NBA for a number of years.

All-American honors have been bestowed on Georgia players nine times over the years, with Bob Lienhard (1969-70), Wilkins (1981-82), and Fleming (1981-82) all garnering honors. Three Bulldogs have been chosen academic all-Americans, including Alec Kessler, a three-time first-team selection who was voted national academic all-American of the year in 1989 and 1990.

Fleming averaged 11.3 points per game during twelve NBA seasons. At the point guard position, he didn’t provide much in the way of shooting but was a very good passer. Fleming spent most of his career with the Indiana Pacers. Wilkins is without a doubt the team’s star. Wilkins is Georgia’s all-time top NBA player. Over the course of his career, he averaged 24.8 points per game. Wilkins was mostly a small forward for the Atlanta Hawks. From 1986 to 1994, he appeared in nine NBA All-Star games in a row.

Anderson, who is 6 feet 7 inches tall, was a very good player in his career at Georgia. Anderson spent most of his 10-year NBA career with the San Antonio Spurs. In 1988, he averaged 18.6 points per game as a rookie. Former Georgia Bulldog Kentavious Caldwell-Pope is another well-known player. KCP would provide much-needed shooting for this club as a guard. Last season, he shot the ball at a 39 percent clip from beyond the arc. Caldwell-Pope was taken eighth overall in the 2013 NBA Draft by the Detroit Pistons.

Top Coaches

Orlando “Tubby” Smith served as head coach for the 1995-96 and 1996-97 seasons and compiled a 45-19 record, is one of UGA’s most successful coaches. During his first season in Athens, Smith led Georgia to the NCAA tournament’s round of sixteen, also known as the Sweet Sixteen. Smith left UGA to become the head coach at Kentucky, where he won the national championship in his first season.

The Bulldog basketball program has had both highs and lows in the first decade of the twenty-first century. Georgia made back-to-back NCAA tournament appearances in 2001 and 2002, tying a school record. For the second year in a row, Georgia won at least ten SEC games, marking the first time in school history that the program had double-digit wins in consecutive SEC seasons. The Bulldogs were rated in the national polls for eleven weeks in a row, the longest such stretch in UGA history, and concluded the year as the Associated Press’s number twenty-five team.

Hugh Durham has a 298-216 record as Georgia’s winningest head basketball coach. Durham coached Georgia from 1979 to 1995, winning the SEC Championship in 1989-90, the SEC Tournament Championship in 1983, and a trip to the Final Four in 1983.

Tom Crean was named the University of Georgia’s head basketball coach on March 15, 2018. Crean was previously the head coach at Marquette, where he went 190-96 in nine seasons with five NCAA Tournament appearances, including one year where they made the Final Four.

Tom Crean took over as Indiana’s head coach in 2008, prior to becoming the Georgia head coach. After reconstructing a program that had been placed on NCAA probation, he was likewise successful there. Crean went 166-135 in nine seasons with the Hoosiers, winning two Big Ten championships and making four NCAA Tournament appearances (three Sweet Sixteens). Crean has struggled thus far in the role of head coach at Georgia as he is just 46-60 through his first three years at the helm and hasn’t won a March Madness.

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