No. 25 Vanderbilt will look to snap a two-game losing streak when it faces Georgia in Southeastern Conference play on Wednesday in Nashville, Tenn.
The Commodores (21-6, 8-6 SEC) led Tennessee with under a minute left on Saturday before falling 69-65.
On Wednesday, Vanderbilt trailed Missouri by 21 with less than nine minutes to play before a furious rally ended in an 81-80 defeat as Tyler Tanner’s half-court buzzer-beater went halfway down before coming out.
“We were an inch away from winning the game at Missouri, maybe a half-inch away from winning the game at Missouri,” Vanderbilt coach Mark Byington said. “And you come back and you’re playing Tennessee, and a great basketball environment, and we just had some things that just couldn’t quite finish the last minute and a half.”
Vanderbilt got back its second-leading scorer this season, Duke Miles (16.4 points per game), on Saturday after he had missed the previous six games with a knee injury. Miles scored 12 points and was just 3 of 13 from the floor but had a team-high six assists without a turnover vs. Tennessee.
Tanner (18.5 ppg) scored 27 points while playing with the flu in the Missouri game. He tested positive for the virus the day before scoring 16 against the Vols on Saturday. He also had four turnovers.
Georgia (19-8, 7-7) lost five of six games until a recent two-game winning streak — an 86-78 victory at Kentucky on Feb. 17, followed by Saturday’s 91-80 home triumph over Texas in an outcome that avenged a 20-point loss to the Longhorns in January.
“Got off to a really good start, with our intensity level, and we talked a lot with our guys these last couple days about the fact that we’re coming off a game (in which) we played with a lot of edge in Lexington,” Georgia coach Mike White said. “We were really, really competitive.”
Two of the losses during the Bulldogs’ slump came without season leading scorer Jeremiah Wilkinson (17.3 ppg), and another contest was a one-point overtime loss at Tennessee.
Wilkinson, who had 32 points against Ole Miss and 31 against Auburn in January games, hasn’t approached that territory since. However, he had 19 against both Kentucky and Texas since his return from a shoulder injury.
The Commodores will need more from Tyler Nickel (14.3 ppg), a 42.9% 3-point shooter who scored three points against Tennessee and 11 at Missouri, and AK Okereke (9.3 ppg), who had 23 points with Miles out against Texas A&M in Vanderbilt’s most recent win (Feb. 14) but had just seven on three field-goal attempts on Saturday.
Georgia, meanwhile, has several capable scorers in Blue Cain (13.8 ppg), Marcus Millender (12.2), Kanon Catchings (10.7) and Somto Cyril (9.8).
The 6-foot-11, 260-pound Cyril may be the game’s biggest x-factor. The Commodores have struggled with size in five of their six losses this season, and Cyril was big (14 points, eight rebounds, two steals) in the win at Kentucky on Feb. 17. But he also fouled out against Texas and was ejected for throwing a punch against Florida on Jan. 6.
Both Okereke and Jalen Washington (six blocks, 10 rebounds against Tennessee) have fouled out three times in SEC games.
–Field Level Media
