What an effort by the team on Saturday in an 85-82 victory over the Georgia Bulldogs at Stegman Coliseum in Athens. I was with a Georgia fan on Thursday and he was kind of laughing when I said we’re kind of the perpetual underdog, so it felt good to handle them Dawgs.
Ezra Manjon played a superb game leading us with 19 points. Ezra was 8 of 12 from the field and 3 of 3 from the charity stripe. He had two major clutch ones in the last minute. More on the free throw shooting in a moment.
Myles Stute added 14, and the great Myles, when he’s hot, which is often, was four for four from trifecta. We need him doing that the rest of this season. Tyrin Lawrence, who has been playing sensational basketball for us, finished with 15. And our tough little man with a gigantic heart, Trey Thomas, added 12 and was tremendous from the line in the last 30 seconds of the game.
Trey was six for six from the stripe. He won the game for us at the end. Awesome work by the man, our super junior.
With Liam Robbins out till the beginning of March with an ankle injury and our other stellar big man, freshman Lee Dort also out till late February/early March with an ankle injury, Quentin Millora-Brown really has to step up. Q did that on Saturday with 7 points and 11 huge boards. Q can give us a lot. He’ll have to dig in tonight. Malik Dia and Collin Smith, two more of our stud freshman class, will have to give us quality minutes going forward on offense, defense and on the glass. Jordan Wright, our stellar senior, will always step up. We’ll need Jordan and Myles to really hit the boards and help out Q. Tyrin is a pretty good rebounder, too. And we’ll have to shoot it well. I love what I’ve seen from stellar 94, 4 star freshman Noah Shelby. Our future is bright now and in 2023-24. Paul Lewis is another freshman who’s going to be a stud for us. Paul gave us some quality minutes on Saturday at the point and sank two trifectas.
So, awesome victory for the team. It doesn’t get any easier tonight at 8 as the Kentucky Wildcats come into Memorial. SEC Network will broadcast. We’ll have to figure out a way to slow down their elite big man, Oscar Tshiebwe. Tshiebwe is 6’9″, 260 and a load. He’s averaging 16.6 points per game and 14 boards. They’ve got some other stellar guys as Calipari can really recruit. They are now 13-6 and 4-3 in the SEC and have won their last 3 in a row including a 63-56 road victory over now No.4 Tennessee. They’re always tough.
But we can win this with our home crowd into it and our players giving it everything they’ve got on both ends of the floor, sinking our threes and frees, taking care of the ball, defending well and hitting those boards relentlessly. If we can play a complete game tonight, we can register a season changing victory at Memorial. I’ll have a recap tomorrow if we can come out victorious.