Georgia basketball unravels in second half, falls at No. 8 Texas A&M

UGA was without two veteran guards in Tyrin Lawrence and Dakota Leffew. Lawrence appeared to suffer a noncontact leg injury against Mississippi State on Saturday while Leffew turned his ankle in practice Monday night, according to the SEC Network broadcast.

But Georgia’s top two guards stepped up in the first half, as Blue Cain and Silas Demary Jr. combined to outscore the Aggies 24-23 at the break. They simply couldn’t get going again in the second half, as the SEC’s second-best scoring defense held Cain and Demary to 12 combined points the rest of the way.

Cain and Demary might have compensated for some of the lost production on the court, but the eight combined years of experience between Leffew and Lawrence were missed.

“Now, we’re really, really young, and our poise and our attention to detail defensively and on the defensive glass let up a little bit when we had some of those empty possessions,” UGA coach Mike White said.

Georgia shot 44% from the field and 6 of 14 from behind the arc in the first half. It finished the game shooting 33% and 7 of 25 from deep.

Texas A&M shot 25% and 1 of 10 from 3-point range in the first half. The Aggies finished shooting 41%, 6 of 20 from three.

Demary ended up leading the Bulldogs for the second-straight game with 19 points. The Bulldogs’ primary ball handler added 4 assists and 3 rebounds.

The Aggies also did well to limit freshman star Asa Newell. The projected NBA first-rounder got into early foul trouble, missed much of the first half and didn’t score until the 8:30 mark of the second half.

Newell did have Georgia’s first field goal of the second half, a dunk at the 7:20 mark. He finished with six points and five rebounds.

It was a similar sight for the Bulldogs when facing Quad 1 SEC teams on the road this season. Georgia held halftime leads over No. 24 Ole Miss, No. 6 Tennessee and Arkansas before quickly falling behind after halftime.

All of those teams boast strong defenses that appeared to make halftime adjustments to slow Georgia’s offense. It’s part of the reason the Bulldogs remain winless in SEC road games this season.

“They made some adjustments, they went to their matchup zone, switching up everything,” White said. “It really had us a little off balance there in the second half.”

Four of Georgia’s five SEC road games have come against top-25 teams, the only unranked team being the Razorbacks.

Georgia returns to Stegeman Coliseum Saturday, hosting No. 21 Missouri at 3:30 p.m. (TV: SEC Network).