Basketball Update

UGA vs. St. John's at Madison Square Garden: Wed at 7:00 pm (ESPN2)

Couple of quick notes on the basketball team in no particular order:

• Travis Leslie - After getting 0 points in the season opener against New Orleans, Leslie has really started to come on. Over the last six games, he's averaged 14.7 points, 6.7 rebounds, 2.7 assists and only 1.7 turnovers. I know we've played several tomato cans, but he put up 17 points, 7 rebounds and 2 assists in the 74-62 loss to Virginia Tech on Sunday in Blacksburg.
  
  The trick with Leslie is designing offensive plays around his skill set. So much of his offense right now is coming from offensive rebounds and put backs. He's still incredibly raw offensively, but the upside is certainly there.
  
  
• Dustin Ware - Ware has been wildly inconsistent when it comes to creating points for himself. He's doing a good job of distributing the ball, but his own scoring has been less impressive than last year. The good news is that his most productive offensive efforts came against the three best teams we've played so far VT, UAB and Saint Louis. The bad news is that we still lost 2 of those 3. Dustin needs to make his fair share of three pointers for Georgia to have any shot against the better teams on the schedule. Against Saint Louis last week, he looked very good.
  
  
• Jeremy Price - While Travis Leslie is clearly the most improved player on the team so far this year, the comeback player of the early season is Price. He's averaging 8.9 points and 4.5 rebounds per game in only 18.5 minutes of action. Last year, he struggled with confidence and attitude problems and averaged almost half those stats while spending an enormous amount of time in the doghouse. As Price matures, he could become a steady 10 point and 7 rebound a night guy for the Bulldogs this season.
  
  
• Trey Thompkins - Trey is having an odd season in some respects. His numbers are fine in spite of the bad shooting night at Virginia Tech, and he consistently shows flashes of greatness. He just needs to clean up a lot of the little things. For instance, I've never seen a player get called for traveling so much. He gets more moving violations than a UGA football player on a scooter. That said...the offense still needs to run through him every night.
  
  
• Free Throw Shooting - Here's a shocker. Through Sunday Night, the Bulldogs are currently in third place in the SEC in free throw shooting. Other than the Wofford game where we couldn't buy a FT, we've actually shot the ball well from the line.

  ---------------------------------------------
  1.Mississippi State...  7     95   133  .714
  Florida..............   8    115   161  .714
  3.Georgia.............  6     88   124  .710
  4.Tennessee...........  7    100   142  .704
  5.LSU.................  6     82   117  .701
  6.Alabama.............  8    117   169  .692
  7.Vanderbilt..........  7    123   179  .687
  8.Arkansas............  8    162   240  .675
  9.South Carolina......  7    117   175  .669
  10.Kentucky...........  8    141   212  .665
  11.Ole Miss...........  8    111   168  .661
  12.Auburn.............  8    113   176  .642
  

  
  We just aren't getting to the line often enough. We're 11th in free throw attempts in the league. we've got to be more aggressive around the basket and penetrate more often.

The Bulldogs next big test is St. John's in Madison Square Garden on Wednesday Night at 7:00 pm on ESPN2. The game is part of the SEC/Big East Invitational. St. John's is 6-1 on the season with a good win vs. Temple and a competitive loss against Duke on the road. A win here would do wonders for the team's confidence.

This is a team that you have to watch while remembering this is a process. It's a team you grade on issues bigger than wins and losses. Do they look like they are improving over the course of the season? And Wednesday night is the first chance for a lot of folks to get an eye full.

PWD