College

Georgia Basketball Opens Season Against FIU

Georgia Basketball Game Notes

Georgia (0-0) vs. Florida International (0-0)

Date: Tuesday, November 9, 2021

Location: Stegeman Coliseum (10,523) in Athens, Ga.

Watch: SEC Network + (Jeff Dantzler, pbp; Mark Slonaker, analyst)

Listen: Georgia Bulldog Sports Network: 960 the Ref-AM, WXKT 103.7-FM (Scott Howard, play-by-play; Chuck Dowdle, analyst; Adam Gillespie, producer)

The Starting 5…

• Georgia opens its 2021-22 season with the Bulldogs’ first-ever game against Florida International.

• The Bulldogs are 83-33 all-time record in season openers, including a 37-6 at Stegeman Coliseum.

• UGA’s roster features 10 newcomers – five D-I transfers, two JUCO transfers and three true freshmen.

• Tom Crean is 21-1 in initial outings as a head coach, 8-1 at Marquette, 9-0 and Indiana and 3-0 with the Bulldogs.

• UGA’s seven first-year transfers combined to score 4,782 points at their previous schools.

The Opening Tip

The Georgia Bulldogs christen their 117th season of basketball – and their fourth under head coach Tom Crean – on Tuesday evening when they host Florida International at Stegeman Coliseum at 7:00 p.m.

Series History With FIU

Tuesday’s game will be the first ever between the Bulldogs and Panthers.

Georgia is 18-9 all-time against schools currently competing with Florida International in Conference USA.

It has been several seasons since the Bulldogs have faced a C-USA team.

Georgia defeated Florida Atlantic, 74-61, in the fourth game of the Bulldogs’ 2014-15 campaign that eventually culminated an NCAA bid and a first-round loss to Final Four participant Michigan State.

Scouting The Panthers

Like Tom Crean, Florida International’s Jeremy Ballard is entering his fourth season at his current program.

The Panthers’ roster features an almost evenly split mix of returnees and newcomers. FIU has seven returnees and eight first-year players.

Redshirt junior Tevin Brewer is the Panthers’ top returning letterwinner from a squad that finished 9-17 overall and 2-15 in league play. He started all 26 games he played last season and averaged 9.0 points while dishing out a team-high 110 assists.

Jevaunte Hawkins and Dante Wilcox also started multiple games in 2020-21 and contributed 5.8 and 4.0 points per game, respectively.

FIU’s newcomers include a pair of Power-5 transfers, one with an SEC resume.

Clevon Brown played in 124 games and started 36 of those over the past five seasons at Vanderbilt, including a redshirt campaign in 2019-20. He started the first 11 games of that season and was averaging 9.0 points and 6.0 rebounds before suffering a knee injury.

Aquan Smart played at Maryland last season before moving south to FIU during the offseason.

Last Time Out

A double-double from Braelen Bridges led a trio of Bulldogs in double figures to pace Georgia en route to a 64-49 win over Morehouse in an exhibition outing Friday evening at Stegeman Coliseum.

In the first home outing for 10 newcomers on the Georgia roster, the Bulldogs methodically built a double-digit lead in the first half and then withstood a rally by the Maroon Tigers that cut the margin to two points before reasserting control.

“It felt great to be back in here with fans on a Friday night before our football team plays,” head coach Tom Crean said. “To have fans come out like that, wow, I thought it was great. We have 10 guys who have never played in this gym before. We’ve only practiced in this gym I think four times, so we have some getting used to with that type of stuff. I love the way our team came out and was aggressive. They were very aggressive. We’ve been struggling with deflections in practice this week, and we had 53 tonight. These guys got after it.”

Bridges was one of four newcomers who led Georgia. The senior from Atlanta finished with 12 points and 10 rebounds and also dished out a team-high four assists. Kario Oquendo chipped in 12 points, and Aaron Cook added 10. Jailyn Ingram hauled in 11 rebounds and matched Bridges’ tally with a quartet of assists.

After the Maroon Tigers jumped out to an 8-5 lead, the Bulldogs seized control with a 9-0 surge. Cook opened the second-half scoring to put Georgia up by 16 points, its largest of the evening.

Morehouse then cut into the margin aided by a quartet of 3-pointers that helped trim the margin to 41-39 with 9:10 left. Bridges scored on Georgia’s next possession, and Jabri Abdur-Rahim followed with a breakaway dunk.

The Maroon Tigers never got closer than five points thereafter, and Georgia finished the night on a 10-0 run.

Bulldogs In Season Openers

Georgia has compiled an 83-33 record in opening contests of the Bulldogs’ 116 seasons of basketball. That includes an even more impressive 37-6 mark in openers at Stegeman Coliseum.

Georgia’s most significant win in an opener at the Coliseum also was its first. In the Bulldogs’ initial opener in their current arena on Dec. 3 1964, UGA bested No. 13 North Carolina, 64-61.

The Bulldogs are 3-0 in openers under current head coach Tom Crean.

In Crean’s debut outing in Athens on Nov. 9, 2018, Georgia raced to a 110-76 victory over Savannah State, the 11th-most points every scored by the Bulldogs and their highest scoring output in the current millennium.

Two seasons ago, Anthony Edwards poured in 24 points – the second-most ever by a Bulldog in their debut trailing only Dominique Wilkins’ 26 versus Troy on Nov. 20, 1979 – to lead Georgia in a 91-72 win over Western Carolina.

Last Nov. 29, in an opener delayed twice by COVID-19, the Bulldogs bested Florida A&M, 85-74.

Crean Strong In Openers

Tom Crean is 20-1 all-time in season openers as a head coach.

Crean was 8-1 at Marquette from 1999-2008, was a perfect 9-0 at Indiana from 2008-17 and has won each of his initial outings at Georgia.

The biggest season-opening victory for a Crean-coached team was when the No. 11-ranked Hoosiers defeated No. 3 Kansas, 103-99, in overtime at the 2016 Armed Forces Challenge in Honolulu.

The Hoosiers raced to an 8-1 start that season – including a second signature victory in November over eventual 2017 NCAA Champion North Carolina – before injuries decimated Indiana’s roster.

A Bunch of New Faces

Georgia’s roster features 10 first-year Bulldogs, while Florida International has eight new Panthers.

Georgia’s newcomers is a diverse group eligibility wise, with sixth-year “super seniors” Aaron Cook and Jailyn Ingram; graduate transfer seniors Noah Baumann and Braelen Bridges; junior college junior transfer Dalen Ridgnal; sophomores Jabri Abdur-Rahim and Kario Oquendo; and freshmen Tyrone Baker, Cam McDowell and Christian Wright.

Crean Closing In On 400 Wins

Georgia head coach Tom Crean opens the 2021-22 season just three wins shy of his 400th career victory. He has compiled 397 W’s in his first 21 campaigns as a collegiate head coach, an impressive average of 18.9 wins per season.

Prior to his 41 wins with the Bulldogs, Crean was 190-96 in nine seasons Marquette’s coach from 1998-2008 and the recorded a 166-135 mark in nine seasons at Indiana between 2008-17.

Tom Crean’s Milestone Wins

No. 1 – Nov. 20, 1999 – Marquette defeats Chicago State, 62-43, in Tom Crean’s first game as a collegiate head coach.

No. 100 – March 6, 2004 – Freshman Dameon Mason’s three-point play with eight-tenths of a second left lifts Marquette over No. 25 Louisville, 81-80.

No. 200 – Dec. 8, 2009 – Indiana knocks off Pittsburgh, 74-64, in the Big Ten/ACC Challenge.

No. 250 – Nov. 20, 2012 – A day after beating Georgia, 66-53, in the first round, IU tops Georgetown, 82-72, to win the Progressive Legends Classic at Barclays Center.

No. 300 – Dec. 20, 2014 – Indiana tops No. 23 Butler, 82-73, as Yogi Ferrell became IU’s 48th 1,000-point scorer.

Welcoming A Slew Of Scoring

Of Georgia’s 10 newcomers, seven are transfers – seven at the Division I level (Jabri Abdur-Rahim, Noah Baumann, Braelen Bridges, Aaron Cook and Jailyn Ingram) and a pair from the junior college ranks (Kario Oquendo and Dalen Ridgnal.

Those players arrive in Athens having scored 4,782 points at their previous schools. That’s the largest addition of scoring by any Division I program for the 2021-22 season as outlined in the next column:

Top Scoring Influx’s In D-I hoops

Rk. School Players Points

1. Georgia 7 4782

2. Duquesne 5 4695

3. Florida 5 4144

4. Arkansas 6 4125

5. Penn State 7 5183

6. Washington St. 4 3785

7. SMU 4 3733

8. Kentucky 4 3538

9. Utah 6 3175

10. Arizona St. 3 3132

Ingram Knows The Panthers

While tonight’s game with FIU will be Georgia’s first ever, the Bulldogs’ Jailyn Ingram is quite familiar with the Panthers.

In five seasons at Florida Atlantic, Ingram faced FIU eight times. FAU was 5-3 in those contests, with Ingram averaging 9.1 points and 4.8 boards against the Panthers. He posted three double-figure scoring outputs those outings.

Last season, Ingram had one of his best games of the season versus FIU, pouring in 24 points and grabbing nine rebounds in an 81-79 victory on Jan. 14.

Putting Up Points Under Crean

Georgia has been keeping scoreboard operators busy since Tom Crean arrived.

The Bulldogs have reached the 90-point plateau 15 times in 90 games under Crean. That’s a relatively healthy 16.7 percent. By comparison, Georgia scored 90 or more points just 15 times in 387 games before Crean’s arrival, or .038 percent of the outings in a span that dates back to the 2006-07 season.

It’s not just a single-game thing.

In three seasons under Crean, the Bulldogs have averaged two of their top-5 scoring outputs of the 2000s.

Georgia averaged 77.5 points per game last season. That represented the Bulldogs’ second-highest scoring average of the 2000s and the most since 2002-03. UGA’s average of 75.9 ppg in 2019-20 gives Crean’s teams two of UGA’s top-5 scoring averages in the 22 seasons completed in the 2000s as outlined below.

Top Scoring Averages IN 2000s

Rk. Season Points Games Avg.

1. 2002-03 2138 27 79.2

2. 2020-21 1944 25 77.8

3. 2001-02 2444 32 76.4

4. 2019-20 2428 32 75.9

5. 2006-07 2477 33 75.1

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