UGA Back on the Road Against Florida
Gainesville, FL – Up next on the schedule for the Georgia Bulldogs are the Florida Gators, whom the Dawgs will play tomorrow in Gainesville at 12 PM EST. On Wednesday, UGA pulled out a close win against the LSU Tigers to improve the Dawgs to 14-5 and 4-2 in the SEC. The Gators are coming off back-to-back wins against Missouri and Mississippi State to bring them to 13-6 overall and 3-3 in the SEC.
In the Dawgs’ most recent outing against LSU, graduate student center Russel Tchewa had a game-winning three-point play that put the Dawgs up 2 with 2.3 seconds left. Tchewa recorded his second double-double of the season with 11 points and 11 assists. Freshman guard Silas Demary Jr. led the Bulldogs with 15 points against LSU to bring his season point average to double digits with 10.2 points per game (ppg). Senior guard Jabri Abdur-Rahim leads the Dawgs offensively for the season, averaging 13.7 ppg and shooting 40.5% from 3-point range. Graduate student guard Noah Thomasson is second behind Abdur-Rahim and is the last of the Bulldogs shooting double-digit numbers with 12.1 ppg. Junior Guard R.J. Melendez is three points short of crossing into the double-digit range with an average of 9.8 ppg. Senior guard Justin Hill is averaging 9.1 ppg and is also Georgia’s leading distributor, averaging 3.4 assists per game.
As seen by his recent double-double, Tchewa is a big defensive threat for the Dawgs. The 7’0” center leads the team in rebounds, averaging 6.6 per game. Demary Jr. is also performing well on defense for UGA. He records the next highest average amount of rebounds with 4.5 per game, and Melendez is right behind him with 4.4 per game.
The Gators have a multitude of offensive threats, with five players putting up an average of over 10 ppg. Junior guard Walter Clayton Jr. leads the pack with 15.8 ppg, followed by senior guard Zyon Pullin with 14.6 ppg, senior forward Tyrese Samuel with 13.5 ppg, junior guard Will Richard with 11.4 ppg (Richard also just put up 23 points against Mississippi State), and sophomore guard Riley Kugel with 10.9 ppg. Pullin leads the Gators in assists with an average of 4.6 per game; Clayton Jr. is second behind Pullin with 2.8 assists per game.
Florida’s defense is almost as balanced as their offense, as they have three players averaging over 7 rebounds. Samuel is the team's rebound leader, averaging 8.3 per game. Sophomore center Micah Handlogten follows Samuel with 7.5 rebounds per game, and freshman forward Alex Condon is third with 7.0 rebounds per game.
The Gators average 12.9 more points than the Dawgs have allowed this season (Florida's average is 84.5 compared to 71.6 allowed by the Dawgs). In contrast, the Dawgs are only averaging 0.5 points more than Florida had allowed (76.2 to 75.7). Florida also averages 44.5 rebounds per game, compared to UGA’s average of 37.4.
This is the first of two meetings between the two teams this season and the 288th matchup of all time (Florida leads the series 122-105 overall). In their most recent matchup, the Dawgs dropped 77 to beat the Gators by 10. Georgia is looking to get a healthy win in, according to Georgia head coach Mike White, a “tough environment” before returning home to play Alabama on Wednesday, January 31st. A win would help start a winning streak for the Dawgs and provide them with some good momentum for the remainder of their season.
Other Georgia News:
- Tchewa Comes Up Big for the Dawgs with Game Winner to Beat LSU
- UGA Suffers First Road Loss to No. 8 Kentucky
- UGA Ends South Carolina's 9-Game Home Win Streak in 74-69 Win
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