Name: University of Georgia
Location: Athens, Georgia
Is there a Greece County in Georgia? Funny! It’s in Clarke County, and Athens itself is about 75 miles, give or take, east of Atlanta in northern Georgia.
Founded: The school was chartered in January 1785, but the board of trustees didn’t meet for the first time until February 1786 and they didn’t actually start teaching anyone until 1801. Slackers.
No Bell Ringing: There’s a bell in a wooden tower on Georgia’s campus that used to be in the roof of the chapel on campus. In the early 20th century, there was rot discovered in the wood, and so the bell was removed and set up in the tower where it stands today. They ring it for notable special occasions, and I think that #15 Marquette should not let that bell ring on Saturday.
Enrollment: 41,615 total students in the fall of 2023, with 31,514 undergraduates.
What’s that coming down the track: Officially, it seems, the call-and-answer chant that starts off with that phrase is for the University of Georgia marching band. The fourth line should be “than the Georgia Redcoat Marching Band,” but you can make it what you want..... like Pat McAfee did before the 2023 SEC Championship game when he went with a well known alteration of “than a drunk obnoxious Georgia fan” ........ and then he picked Alabama anyway......... and Pat was right.
Shocking to find out that Pat McAfee is a good professional wrestling announcer, isn’t it?
Nickname: Bulldogs
Why “Bulldogs”? When even the school starts their explanation with “Many old timers say,” you know the answer is kind of shrouded in mystery. Anyway, here’s their own explanation:
Many oldtimers say Georgia acquired the nickname, “Bulldogs,” because of the strong ties with Yale, whose nickname is “Bulldogs.” Georgia’s first president, Abraham Baldwin, was a Yale man and the early buildings on campus were designed from blueprints of the same buildings at Yale. However, the first references to the nickname “Bulldogs” actually came in the 1910’s (1911-20) by Atlanta newspaper writers covering both football and baseball games. Although used occasionally during the previous decade, the nickname began to be consistently used around 1920.
On Nov. 3, 1920, Morgan Blake of the Atlanta Journal wrote about school nicknames and said “The Georgia Bulldogs would sound good because there is a certain dignity about a bulldog, as well as ferocity.” After a 0-0 tie with Virginia in Charlottesville on Nov. 6, 1920, Atlanta Constitution writer Cliff Wheatley used the name “Bulldogs” in his story five times. Gene Hinton also used the term “Bulldogs.” The nickname seemed to be off and running.
What’s the deal with Uga, anyway? Uga (pronounced ugga) is the official live bulldog mascot of the University of Georgia. As it turns out, Uga is more of a title, kind of like the Pope, as the successive dogs have their own names. For example, the current Uga is Uga XI, but the dog’s name is Boom. Since Uga was officially designated as a university mascot in 1956, each successive Uga has been owned by the Seiler family.
There is an Uga mausoleum near the entrance to Georgia’s football stadium.
And now, Uga realizing that Bevo, the live Texas longhorn mascot, was going to charge him long before anyone else realized it.
That dog has respiratory system problems on account of being a bulldog and he’s still moving faster than anyone else to get the hell out of the way of one ton of steer. Respect.
But they’ve got a costume mascot, too? Yep, the wildly inferior “human in a suit” mascot is named Hairy Dawg. He made his first appearance at the 1981 Sugar Bowl and has been an official part of game days since then. Hairy Dawg is probably most famous for former Georgia quarterback Matt Stafford thinking he peed on the floor in the ESPN offices.
Notable Alumni: Nine Pulitzer Prize winners, including former United States Poet Laureate Natasha Tretheway; actress Kim Basinger; psychologist Barbara Rothbaum, pioneer in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder; Fred Schneider, frontman for The B-52’s; humorist Lewis Grizzard; Widespread Panic members John Bell, Michael Houser, and Dave Schools; Colonel Charles Beckwith, who was credited with the creation of Delta Force in the United States Armed Forces; R.E.M. members Bill Berry, Peter Buck, Mike Mills, and Michael Stipe; actor Kyle Chandler, best known as Coach Taylor on Friday Night Lights; Mike Chapman, the co-creator of Homestar Runner; Colonel Michael Steele, former commander of the 101st Airborne and veteran of the Battle of Mogadishu as depicted in the book Black Hawk Down; Grammy award winning musician Danger Mouse; nuclear physicist Eugene Booth, who worked on the first demonstration of nuclear fission and went on to work on The Manhattan Project; pro wrestler Goldberg; actor Josh Holloway, best known as Sawyer on Lost; Inside The NBA host Ernie Johnson; actor Wayne Knight, best known as either Newman on Seinfeld or Nedry in Jurassic Park; UFC Hall of Famer Forrest Griffin; actor Matt Lanter, best known (by me) as the voice of Anakin Skywalker on The Clone Wars; television personality Ryan Seacrest; Hines Ward, professional football player and possibly the only survivor of Bane’s attack on Gotham Stadium; Gy Waldron, the creator of The Dukes of Hazzard; musician Trisha Yearwood; and finally, Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene.
Last Season: 20-17, with a 6-12 record in SEC action. The Bulldogs had a slow start, opening up 2-3 with losses to Oregon, Miami, and Providence. They bounced back, getting to 10-3 at the end of non-con action and started SEC play 2-0. Then they finished the regular season on a 4-12 collapse, lost to Florida in their second game of the conference tournament, but then made it to the NIT semifinals.
Final 2023-24 KenPom.com Ranking: #84
Final 2023-24 BartTorvik.com Ranking: #73
2024-25 Preseason Poll: Picked to finish 12th out of 16 teams in the SEC. They were tied for 11th in a 14 team league at the end of last season for what it’s worth.
So Far This Season: A perfect 5-0, but it’s a much different 5-0 than Marquette’s. They snuck past Tennessee Tech by 5 in their opener, then crushed Texas Southern, then got past North Florida by 13 after the Ospreys caught South Carolina and Georgia Tech napping in their first three games. The Bulldogs beat local rival Georgia Tech in a road game last Friday, and then smashed Alabama A&M by nearly 50 on Tuesday night.
Current KenPom.com Ranking: #59
Current BartTorvik.com Ranking: #42
Returning Stat Leaders
Points: Silas Demary, Jr., 9.7 ppg
Rebounds: Silas Demary, Jr., 3.8 rpg
Assists: Silas Demary, Jr., 2.5 apg
Current Stat Leaders
Points: Asa Newell, 16.8 ppg
Rebounds: RJ Godfrey, 7.8 rpg
Assists: Silas Demary, Jr., 3.8 apg
Bigs? Georgia had two seniors north of 6’10” a year ago, and the Bulldogs immediately replaced them with two freshman bigs. Asa Newell is the most notable one, as you noticed that he is leading the squad in scoring at 16.8 per game. He’s also chipping in 7.4 rebounds per game, and when you’re 6’11” and 220 pounds, you probably should grab a few rebounds, even more so if you come in as the 247 Sports Composite’s #16 prospect in the country.
There’s a little bit more of Somto Cyril to throw around, as he’s listed at 6’11” and 260 pounds. Cyril has played in all five games this season, averaging 15.2 minutes a night. He’s chipping in 5.2 points and 3.6 rebounds while matching Newell at 2.0 blocks per game.
I don’t think we can count Dylan James (6’9”, 200 lb) as a big, but he is a tall and he’s averaging over nine minutes a game. Justin Abson is 6’9” and 235 pounds, and the Appalachian State junior transfer is playing just under 10 minutes a game to this point of the year.
Shooters? Tyrin Lawrence starts and plays 28 minutes a night for Georgia. He’s not a frequent shooter, but he’s making 43% of his less than three attempts per game. The catch is that Lawrence shot under 29% for four seasons with Vanderbilt, so there’s a “who’s the real Tyrin” situation here. Mount St. Mary’s bonus year transfer Dakota Leffew is going bombs away for the Bulldogs, putting up a career high 7.2 per game right now and hitting just under 39%. He connected on almost 36% across four years with The Mount, so it seems like he’s pretty reliable.
And that’s it.
No one else on the team is shooting better than 28% this season, and that includes Asa Newell firing off 12 attempts this season and hitting just two of them. Blue Cain is a sophomore that did shoot 35% a year ago, while Silas Demary connected on 30% as a freshman last year. Maybe they catch fire at some point to even things out to their marks from last season, so it’s in MU’s interest to stop that from happening.
Head Coach: Mike White, in his third season as Georgia head coach and 14th as a Division 1 head coach. He has a record of 41-33 with the Bulldogs and 284-161 overall after stops at Louisiana Tech and Florida.
How To Watch: Yep, we’re adding a section. Why?
This game is streamed exclusively on FloSports.
This is not a sudden change. There was no television provider at all for this game up until two weeks ago when Jon Rothstein reported it. Marquette has never made an official announcement about it, just posted the link to FloSports on Thursday when they published the official team preview. That official preview tells you nothing about how to subscribe to and watch FloSports, nor does it tell you anything about how much it costs.
FloSports is a paid streaming service that costs $30 a month under normal circumstances. DO NOT pay $30 for a month of FloSports.
Use this link to pay less than that. FloSports recently launched FloCollege at $20 a month instead of $30, so if you want to watch the game, that’s how you do it. It’s possible that if you click through, you’ll get a lower, Big East bonus price. No, I can’t tell you the prices for certain because FloSports doesn’t make them public on their own website until you punch in an email address to register and I already have a recurring annual subscription to watch soccer, volleyball, women’s basketball, and lacrosse. I know Andrei from Paint Touches started the process with the link I just gave you and he came up with the $20 a month price.
Again, USE THIS LINK to subscribe.
If you don’t want to pay $20 for a streaming service that you’ve never used before, then swing back here to AE on Saturday morning. We’ll be doing a live blog, not just comments in the Game Thread, since I’m not expecting a lot of people to buy one month subscriptions.
What To Watch For: I don’t think it’s outrageous to think that this game might tilt on how well Marquette deals with Georgia’s rebounding.
According to KenPom.com as of Thursday night, Georgia is the #27 defensive rebounding team in the country in terms of what percentage of rebounds they grab, and they’re #5 on the offensive glass. By way of combining the two things, that makes Georgia the second best rebounding team in the country, as Arizona is #2 and #1 respectively in those two categories.
It’s not news to you, the observant Marquette fan, that the Golden Eagles struggle a little bit on the glass. MU’s a little bit better on offensive rebounds than they were last season but they’re still not good. They’re a little bit better on the defensive glass so far this season, but that still only has them at #136 in the country so far, and that essentially just a middle-of-the-road number.
Maybe this is a game where MU just abandons offensive rebounding entirely. Georgia doesn’t have a truly elite defensive rebounder as far as an individual player goes, as RJ Godfrey’s the only one with a national ranking in defensive rebounding rate this season down at #227.
Godfrey and Asa Newell are walking talking Windex bottles on the offensive glass, though. Newell has the #13 offensive rebounding rate in the country, while Godfrey has to settle for #83. Justin Abson’s offensive rebounding rate number falls in between those two, but he doesn’t have enough minutes to qualify for the national leaderboard at the moment. The Golden Eagles are going to have to find a way to slow these guys down on that end of the floor. Part of that might be hunting for turnovers to stop a shot from going up in the first place. Georgia does turn it over on 18% of possessions, which isn’t objectively awful, just merely right at the edge of being bottom half of the country bad. However, mix “not that great at holding onto it” with “Marquette feels bad if they only have 32 deflections in a game,” and you have a potential situation where Chase Ross and Stevie Mitchell spend a lot of this game suddenly taking off running towards the other end of the court with the ball.
Marquette’s offense might have a thing to say about how this game goes. I mentioned that Georgia doesn’t have a whole lot in the way of shooters that can cause damage, and it seems clear that Mike White knows that, too. The Bulldogs get less than 38% of their field goal attempts from behind the three-point line, which is down in the 220s in terms of national rank per KenPom.com. They don’t like doing it, but that makes sense because they’re not good at it. So, as long as Marquette’s defense can withstand the pressure on the inside and do a reasonable amount of resisting UGa’s offensive rebounding, that’s where the MU offense can start tilting things. Marquette loves shooting three-pointers, getting at least 39% of their attempts from behind the arc in every single game this season. Yes, MU’s least three-pointy game of the season is still higher than Georgia’s season average. The catch is that the Golden Eagles haven’t been great as a team at hitting those threes. They’ve been a positive shooting team — higher than 33% — just once this season, and it’s probably not a coincidence that it’s the night that they shot the lowest rate of threes. If the threes come from the guys who are hitting them — Kam Jones & Chase Ross for sure, Ben Gold if he can keep up his 4-for-9 run — to maximize the value of the shots Marquette attempts, then the pure value of “threes are worth more than twos” can start tilting the game in MU’s favor. If David Joplin — career 35%, currently in a 2-for-23 slump — or Royce Parham — 0-for-8 to start the year, 4-for-10 since — find their way towards the light and help things out in that regard, even better.
Last thing: Can we circle back to Georgia’s eight point road win over local rival Georgia Tech for a second? It’s their only game against a KenPom top 160 opponent right now, and the Yellow Jackets aren’t a top 100 team. Yes, they won, winning on the road against power conference opponents is hard, all of those wins are valuable, etc., etc., but.... they also gave up a 13-2 run in the second half to let an eight point lead turn into a three point deficit. They used a 14-0 run to retake the lead and ultimately keep the Bees at arm’s length..... but they still only got to 50 points at the end of that run with less than eight minutes to play. Maybe it’s just an off night on the road, and yeah, they ultimately did get to 77 points in that game..... but Georgia’s offense might not be good if that’s what Georgia Tech’s defense can do to them for most of 40 minutes.
All Time Series: Marquette leads 2-1, but Georgia did win the most recent encounter 73-66 in Milwaukee back in 2017.
