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December 7 Sheet

Georgia (+1) vs California - 1:30pm - Anaheim, CA
I have never been a fan of Jim Harrick, but this team is really good. They are a joy to watch play. Primarily everyone is back from last years 22-10 second round NCAA tournament team. The top seven players are all upperclassmen. They are experienced, know each other well, and play great together. They are still without F/C Steve Thomas (ineligible 1st semester) but they have had versatile forward Chris Daniels (13.2ppg, 7.8rpg, 3.8apg, 2.2bpg) back since he missed the season opener vs Texas. The team has also added NC State transfer forward Damien Wilkins (8.8ppg, 4.8rpg, 3.4apg) who can do a little bit of everything.

The Bulldogs have played an ultra tough schedule against some teams I am really high on. They played Texas (without Daniels) on a neutral floor and were very close to winning. They played at Georgia Tech and led most of the game. They played at Minnesota and lost on a buzzer beater. They finally caught a break hitting a buzzer beater of their own in last game at Colorado and earned a quality road win. Texas can be a top 10 team this year, Georgia Tech (extremely high on) can end up being a top 15 team, Minnesota & Colorado will both reach the postseason this year and very seldom lose at home. Sagarin ratings rank UGA's schedule 18th toughest in the nation, RPI ranks it 22nd toughest. I do not believe anyone has even played, nonetheless performed as well in, three tougher "true" away games than Georgia has.

Cal meanwhile comes in with strength of schedule rankings of 174th (Sagarin) & 114 (RPI). The Bears lone quality win came at New Mexico in a game that they were badly outplayed in for the first 30 minutes. The Bears trailed by 13 points on two separate occasions in the 2nd half before going on an improbable 19-1 run aided by 1-of-8 free throw shooting by the Lobos. New Mexico shot just 3-of-17 from behind the arc in the 2nd half. Another question is why were they shooting so many 3's with a double digit lead? In Cal's next game they needed overtime to beat a bad Cleveland State team. In their most recent game they beat a bad Howard team (lost by 21 to Northridge) by just 10 points. I wrote in length at start of the season why it may take awhile for Cal to find itself and play its best basketball. Every Cal player is having to adjust to a new role this season. Cal leading scorer Shipp (24.7ppg) is hitting 62.9% from 3-point land so far this year. UGA has more than one player who matches up well with Shipp, rest assured he will have a strong defender in his face all day.

Three Georgia starters played two years ago when the Bulldogs lost by 22 points at Cal. This time around the game will be played in a much more neutral setting at The Pond in Anaheim. Head coach Harrick, likely still bitter from UCLA ousting, will want to have a good showing in front of Southern California audience (won at Pepperdine by 17 last season) especially in classic bearing UCLA legend Wooden's name. Bulldogs end road trip with a quality non-conference win.

Georgia  1 UNIT

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