GAME PREVIEW: #25 Auburn vs Georgia

Ben Queen-USA TODAY Sports

Game 22: Time to get back on track!

GAME 22: Wednesday, February 1st, 2023

#25 Auburn Tigers vs Georgia Bulldogs

Neville Arena - Auburn, AL

Time: 6:00 pm CST/7:00 pm EST

Network: SEC Network, Auburn Radio Network

Betting Odds: Auburn -12.0, Over/Under 141.0 via Draft Kings Sportsbook

(Odds/lines subject to change. Visit DraftKings for more information.)

Skin of our teeth, baby! Auburn lost two games last week, and at a certain point on Saturday looked to be in danger of losing two games in fairly embarrassing fashion. However, the Tigers mounted a comeback that ultimately fell just short against West Virginia and supervillain Erik Stevenson. Still, that left the Tigers at 0-2 for the week after having their 28-game home winning streak broken by Texas A&M during the midweek.

Now, we’ve hit February and the toughest portion of the schedule is still ahead of us, starting most importantly this coming Saturday with the first of two meetings against Tennessee. However, tonight is equally important as Auburn wants to erase a losing streak, hold serve at home, and exact revenge over the Georgia Bulldogs, who won the first meeting of the season about a month ago in Athens.

In that game, both teams had two players hit double figures, with Auburn getting 22 from Johni Broome (12 rebounds also), and 11 from Allen Flanigan. Unfortunately, Georgia’s Terry Roberts and Kario Oquendo combined for 43 points, and Georgia won 76-64. Wendell Green went just 2-12 from the floor for 7 points and 4 turnovers, while the Tigers went just 6-28 from three on the night. Meanwhile, Georgia was 6-15 from deep, and hit 45% of their shots in total.

That game seemed to kickstart the Tigers, and they won the next five SEC games before falling a week ago to A&M. Now, we have to pick it back up and see if we can create some momentum before it’s @Tennessee, @Texas A&M, and at home against Alabama over the next 10 days.

THE OPPONENT

Georgia looked like a much improved team for a while with Mike White at the helm. Hey, they beat us, and then as they were sitting at 3-1 in the league, they went off a cliff. Losses at Kentucky, to Vandy at home, and a 29-point shredding at Tennessee sent them into a tailspin that was just barely righted with an overtime victory over South Carolina on Saturday.

It’s still very much the Roberts/Oquendo show for the Bulldogs, but Georgia was saved on Saturday by Mardrez McBridge, who went 5-7 from three off the bench in the 85-82 overtime win. Georgia isn’t very good at shooting the three as a team, but over the past few games whenever they’ve hit several threes, it’s been one unexpected guy off the bench getting hot. Like McBride, Jabri Abdur-Rahim doing the same thing by hitting 5-8 against Vanderbilt three games ago.

You can see the team numbers for yourself, but Georgia doesn’t do any one thing particularly well except for rebounding and getting to the foul line. Big guards like they’ve got certainly help with both of those areas.

Per Game Team and Opponent Stats Table

	G	MP	FG	FGA	FG%	2P	2PA	2P%	3P	3PA	3P%	FT	FTA	FT%	ORB	DRB	TRB	AST	STL	BLK	TOV	PF	PTS
Team	21	40.3	23.8	56.5	.421	16.8	35.8	.470	7.0	20.7	.336	15.7	21.3	.736	11.7	26.7	38.3	11.8	6.8	3.0	13.9	15.3	70.1
Rank			311th	255th	304th	275th	183rd	314th	247th	237th	220th	33rd	41st	101st	71st	66th	44th	297th	156th	199th	77th	303rd	218th
Opponent	21	40.3	24.9	60.0	.414	18.5	38.5	.480	6.4	21.5	.296	10.8	15.5	.693	10.8	23.6	34.3	13.0	7.0	3.7	12.1	17.8	66.9
Rank			177th	290th	69th	244th	285th	123rd	82nd	181st	22nd	63rd	79th	99th	283rd	120th	200th	66th	260th	296th	108th	254th	107th

Provided by CBB at Sports Reference: View Original Table
Generated 2/1/2023.

PREDICTION

I’m hoping that what we saw in the second half in Morgantown carries over, and that the team feels better after how they fought back. Carrying that to tonight and putting it in front of the Jungle should help the Tigers, who seemed to have a similar lull to the A&M game when they went to Athens the previous time. Auburn is favored by 12 points tonight, which seems like a lot after two straight defeats, but the Tigers really don’t lose to teams like Georgia at home. I think the defense overall has a big night, limiting the Bulldogs to the low 60s at most, and we see another big game from Johni Broome. A start like we had against the Aggies wouldn’t go amiss, as long as we can keep our foot down.

Auburn 71, Georgia 60

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