It has been a successful season so far for the Georgia basketball team, but that success does not come without concerns as conference play begins January 3rd against Auburn. We highlighted positive takeaways in a previous post; here, we will look at three areas of concern as Georgia heads into SEC play.

3 Areas Georgia needs to Improve:

1 – Defensive Rebounding

Defensive rebounding is the biggest area of concern for this team as it heads toward conference play. Georgia has struggled to rebound opponents’ misses, and the concern is amplified given the level of competition they have faced so far.

Georgia currently ranks 189th in the country according to BarTorvik in Offensive Rebound % Allowed. They have been allowing their opponents to rebound 31.3% of their misses, which is far too high, and when we take into account the not-so-great competition so far, this is an area Georgia needs to clean up.

Many SEC teams are known for crashing the offensive glass, so if Georgia is not able to clean this up, they will be in for a long conference play season. In their first 2 conference games, Georgia plays Auburn and Florida, who rank 14th and 2nd nationally in Offensive Rebound %, so these will be 2 big early tests.

2 – Three Point Shooting

Georgia has struggled to shoot from beyond the arc this season, an area that will need to improve for the Bulldogs to have a successful conference run. Georgia is currently shooting 31.7% from three, the third-worst mark in the SEC. Georgia has definitely emphasized getting up more three-point shots this season, which is good, but they need more of these shots to go down. Georgia has shot the 3rd-most three-pointers in the SEC, behind Texas A&M and Alabama, but they are shooting a much higher percentage, 38.2% and 35.7%, respectively.

Georgia has shown some improvement in this area recently, as they have shot 38% from three in the last 3 games, but it will be important for this team to continue to have an upward trajectory in this area, as it will increase their ceiling.

3 – Paint Points Allowed

The last area of concern for this Georgia basketball team as we head into conference play is the percentage of points the team allows in the paint.

Georgia ranks 2nd to last in the SEC in % of Points allowed in the paint at 47.2%. They trail only South Carolina who is at 48.1%. This indicates that the opposing teams are getting easy baskets far too often and that is impacting Georgia’s defense.

Some of this can be attributed to the up pace, press defense that Georgia does play as that will lead to more easy buckets for the opponents when they break it but also allows Georgia to easily score off of turnovers the defense forces. This style of defense has its pros and cons and allowing a large percentage of points in the paint is a con Georgia will have to deal with.

Georgia has an incredible rim protector in Somto Cyril so the hope would be that he will be able to continue to prevent these paint points as we go through conference play.

We will see how Georgia addresses these areas of concern as conference play begins January 3rd in Athens against the Auburn Tigers.

Please share and follow for what should be an exciting 2.5 months of conference play for the 12-1 Georgia Bulldogs!