Georgia earned a spot in the national rankings for the first time in 14 years after notching back-to-back upset wins.
Checking in at No. 23 in both major polls, the Bulldogs attempt to validate their new standing when they battle No. 6 Tennessee on Wednesday night in Southeastern Conference play in Knoxville, Tenn.
However, third-year Georgia coach Mike White doesn’t want anyone thinking that his program has arrived after cracking the AP poll for the first time since Jan. 10, 2011.
“We’re just not going to do big picture. I’m sorry,” White said before the rankings were unveiled. “… Really happy for our guys. We’ve got a ways to go. We do.”
Georgia (14-2, 2-1 SEC) crashed into the rankings by beating then-No. 6 Kentucky 82-69 on Jan. 7 and then-No. 17 Oklahoma 72-62 on Saturday.
Tennessee (15-1, 2-1) represents another stiff challenge. The Volunteers were the last team in the country to lose their first game and fell out of the No. 1 spot in the nation by being blown out 73-43 by then-No. 8 Florida on Jan. 7.
“This is a great opportunity for us,” White said of visiting the Vols. “They’re one of the best teams in the country and they’ve had one of the best defenses in the country for the last decade. It’s an opportunity to see where we stack up on the road in front of 20-something-thousand (fans). It will be rockin’ in there.”
In the victory over Oklahoma, Asa Newell and Dakota Leffew each scored 15 points. Somto Cyril blocked four shots to mark his fourth time with four or more this season. The freshman big man from Nigeria has rejected 32 shots overall.
Newell leads Georgia with averages of 15.4 points and 6.8 rebounds and owns a stellar 58.1 field-goal percentage. Leffew is second with a 12.4 ppg average and has knocked down a team-best 38 3-pointers.
Tennessee has defeated the Bulldogs four straight times and in six of the past seven meetings. The Volunteers are looking to beat the Bulldogs for the 100th time. Georgia has 62 wins in the series.
The Volunteers shot just 21.4 percent from the field (12 of 56) and 13.8 percent from 3-point range (4 of 29) in their ugly loss to Florida but bounced back with a 74-70 road victory over Texas on Saturday.
Tennessee was 10 of 23 from 3-point range against the Longhorns with Darlinstone Dubar knocking down three while scoring 12 points off the bench. That was his second-best scoring output of the season.
“He just played with a force,” Tennessee coach Rick Barnes said of Dubar. “We need him to do it. We tell him all the time. He can really shoot the ball. He can really shoot it.”
Zakai Zeigler led the Volunteers with 16 points and eight assists. He ranks second in scoring at 11.9 points per game and leads in assists (7.6). Zeigler needs seven assists to become the second Tennessee player to reach 600. Johnny Darden (1975-79) is the program leader with 715.
Leading scorer Chaz Lanier (19.0) is in a two-game funk in which he scored only 10 points in each game. He is just 6 of 27 (22.2 percent) from the field during the span, including 3 of 15 from 3-point range.
When Lanier threw a bad pass into the Tennessee bench on the first possession of the second half against Texas, Barnes yanked him from the game.
Barnes was upset that Lanier didn’t take a shot.
“That play was designed for that shot,” Barnes told reporters. “I told him, I said, ‘If you’re not going to do what you’re getting paid to do, you sit over here.’ Because he is getting paid to do that.”
Lanier averaged 25.3 points over a three-game stretch prior to the back-to-back poor outings. He has seven 20-point outings this season.
–Field Level Media
