Georgia basketball dominates second half in regular-season finale win over Vanderbilt

“We addressed it at halftime,” UGA coach Mike White said. “I didn’t think we were as sharp defensively as we needed to be to beat them, and I thought in the second half, we simply played really, really hard.”

The team that often has struggled coming out of the locker room jumped on top for good with a 15-4 run early in the second half.

Blue Cain sparked the run with a layup at the 18:05 mark. Dylan James and Silas Demary Jr. followed with 3-pointers for a 51-44 lead.

Somto Cyril executed a three-point play on a dunk, and four points later, Georgia ended the run with a 58-48 lead and 13:12 left in the game.

“He (Cyril) changed the game, and it was big for us,” Lawrence said. “Luckily, we were able to feed off of it.”

Vanderbilt hit back with an 8-0 run while the Bulldogs’ offense fell silent. Dakota Leffew, one of two Senior Day honorees, made a 3-pointer that ended UGA’s four-minute shooting drought.

The Bulldogs offense rebounded, drawing physical fouls to earn the bonus situation. Georgia kept building its lead with free throws from there.

Leffew delivered the dagger, a fast-break layup to take a 70-56 lead with 4:25 remaining as Stegeman Coliseum erupted.

Leffew finished with 14 points, five rebounds and a couple of steals. Fellow senior Lawrence added 13 points, five rebounds and two steals of his own against the team he played 105 games for before transferring to Georgia.

“Doing whatever was necessary to get the win for bragging rights,” Lawrence said. “I got a few still over there that I talk to every day, so I couldn’t let them go home with the win.”

Lawrence helped the Bulldogs weather a physical game with 42 total fouls. Lawrence was a force in the paint, drawing five fouls and shooting 6-of-10 from the free-throw line.

Demary and Newell co-led the Bulldogs with 15 points each. Demary added three steals, while Newell pulled down four rebounds.

Georgia will finish 11th in the SEC and will draw a rematch with Oklahoma in the first round of the SEC Tournament. The Bulldogs beat the Sooners 72-62 on Jan. 11 for their third win over a ranked team this season.

Georgia and Oklahoma will tip off around 10 p.m. Wednesday from Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee. The exact game time is unknown, only said to be 25 minutes after the third tournament game — a 7 p.m. tipoff — ends.

The Bulldogs and Commodores traded blows throughout the first half, which ended in a 39-39 knot.

Georgia’s offense got off to a sluggish start before an electrifying four-point play from Cain. UGA had not scored in nearly three minutes when another possession appeared to go stale before Cain asked for the ball.

The sophomore spot-up shooter drained a long 3-pointer despite a foul behind the arc, sparking Stegeman Coliseum’s noon crowd with the four-point play.

Lawrence led the Bulldogs at the half with nine points, shooting 3-of-7 from the floor. Newell and Demary had eight each, with Newell’s last points coming on a pair of free throws with half a second left.

Vanderbilt played a cleaner first half, committing five turnovers compared with Georgia’s nine. The Bulldogs executed better on turnovers, though, scoring nine points off mistakes while the Commodores scored seven.

SEC Tournament action begins at 1 p.m. Wednesday. The bottom eight seeds will play four games, and the winners will play seeds five through nine Thursday.

Those winners will play the SEC’s top four seeds Friday before a Saturday semifinal and a championship game Sunday.