Georgia Bulldogs (21-11, 9-7) vs. Washington Huskies (23-10, 11-7)
Friday, March 18, 2011 - Tipoff Time: 9:45 p.m. (EST) Time Warner Cable Arena - Charlotte, N.C.
TELEVISION Live natonal telecast on the CBS (Jim Nantz, Clark Kellogg, Tracy Wolfson) GEORGIA RADIO Georgia Bulldog Radio Network presented by IMG College:Scott Howard(Play-by-Play),Mark Slonaker(Color) Local station: In Atlanta: WSB (750 AM) & WBTS (95.5 FM). In Athens: WGAU (1340 AM) & WXKT (FM 103.7). SATELLITE RADIO The majority of Georgia basketball games in 2010-11 can be heard on SiriusXM Radio. The game will be on XM Ch. 200 & Sirius Ch. 215. SEC Programming Info ON THE INTERNET Due to NCAA regulations Georgiadogs.com is unable to stream the audio for NCAA Tournament games. GameTracker - Live stats updated throughout the tournament.

Coach Fox

Georgia in the NCAA Tournament

• Georgia returns to the NCAA Tournament for the first time since 2008 when it plays Washington on Friday night in Charlotte, N.C. The Bulldogs earned one of 34 at-large bids to this year's tournament, the first time since 2002 that a Georgia team has won that distinction. The program's most recent berth in '08 was automatic after it won the SEC Tournament. This will be Georgia's 11th time to play in the NCAA Tournament. The school has a 7-10 record that includes one trip to the Final Four (1983) and another Sweet 16 appearance (1996).
• The current Bulldogs arrive at this weekend with a 21-11 overall record, having finished 9-7 in Southeastern Conference play.
• Regardless of Georgia's post-season outcome, 2011 has already been an historic season. Among the notable milestones reached include:
  • The 21 wins mark the 11th time in 105 years of basketball at UGA for reaching the 20-victory milestone, and also the first 20-win season since 2002.
  • The Bulldogs' third-place finish in the SEC Eastern Division is the program's best since 2003. That was also the last time Georgia had a winning record in league play.
  • During the season the Bulldogs posted a 9-game winning streak, the longest for Georgia since the Final Four year of 1983.
  • This team also went undefeated in the month of December for just the third time in school history.

Probable Starters

#Assists Per Game

Head Coach: Mark Fox
Record at Georgia / Years: 35-28 / 2nd season
Overall Record/Years: 158-71 / 7th season
Assistant Coaches: Kwanza Johnson, Philip Pearson, Stacey Palmore

#Assists Per Game

Georgia vs. Washington

• This will be the first-ever meeting between Georgia and Washington in basketball.
• Georgia has only a limited history against the current membership of the Pac 10 Conference. Its all-time ledger of 4-8 against the Pac 10 includes fhe following records: 0-0 vs. Arizona; 0-1 vs. Arizona State and Oregon; 1-0 vs. USC and Wash. State; 1-1 vs. Cal and Oregon State; 0-2 vs. UCLA and Stanford.

• Georgia is 5-13 all-time against North Carolina. These two schools were frequent opponents when both were members of the Southern Conference before 1932, when UGA helped form the SEC. Their most recent meeting came in the 1998-99 pre-season NIT.
• Georgia has a 2-0 record against Long Island, having defeated the Blackbirds in 1991 & 1998.

• Georgia head coach Mark Fox isn't a native of Washington state, but his personal and professional ties to the state and school are certainly worth noting. He got his start in coaching under Lynn Nance at UW in the fall of 1991 and worked there for two seasons. During that time he met his wife Cindy, a Yakima native and UW alum who was the Huskies' marketing director at the time.

• This will be Georgia's 11th time in the NCAA Tourney. Bulldog teams have compiled a 7-10 record in tournament games, with one Final Four appearance (1983) and another Sweet Sixteen berth (1996).
• The Final Four berth of 1983 came in Georgia's first time in the NCAA Tournament.
• Twice Georgia has earned the SEC's automatic bid to the tournament by winning the post-season SEC tourney: 1983 and 2008.
• Georgia has appeared in the NCAA Tournament under five different head coaches: Hugh Durham (1983-85-87-90-91), Tubby Smith (1996-97), Jim Harrick (2001-02), Dennis Felton (2008) and now Mark Fox (2011).
• Georgia is 2-0 against #1 seeds in NCAA Tournament games. The 1983 team knocked off #1 St. John's in the East Regional semis. The 1996 squad upended the West's #1 seed Purdue in the second round.
• Nine of Georgia's 32 games have come against teams in the 2011 NCAA Tournament. Just two of these games were against non-SEC opponents (UAB & Xavier). The Bulldogs were 3-6 in those contests:
  

  Opponent	Result(s)
  Florida	(0-2) L/91-104, 2OT; L/62-71
  Kentucky	(1-1) W/77-70; L/60-66
  Tennessee	(1-1) L/57-59; W/69-63
  UAB	(1-0) W/66-64
  Vanderbilt	(0-2) L/66-73; L/56-64
  Xavier	(0-1) L/57-65

• Georgia played another four games this season against teams that are in the NIT field. The Bulldogs defeated Colorado in Athens 83-74 in the second game of the season. They won 98-76 at Ole Miss on the second Saturday in January in perhaps their best, most complete performance of the season. Georgia dropped a pair of games to Alabama, both in the past 10 days of the season.
• Georgia's all-time NCAA Tournament opponent team would certainly include, among others: Michael Jordan, Chris Mullen, Sam Perkins and Dereck Whittenburg (1983); Xavier McDaniel (1985); Mitch Richmond (1987) and John Wallace (1996).
• Its own NCAA Tournament all-star team would certainly include Willie Anderson (35 pts. vs. K-State in 1987); the late Alec Kessler (17 rebs. vs. Texas in 1990); Jarvis Hayes (31 pts. vs. Murray State in 2002); and James Banks (East Regional MVP) & Vern Fleming (17 pts. vs. UNC) in 1983.

• Of RPIs and such...Georgia earned an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament with a resume that compared favorably to many contenders. Among its selling points included:
  > An RPI that remained in the 30s until four late games against the SEC Western Division caused it to dip to its current position of 47.
  > Three wins against Top 50 RPI opponents.
  > A 7-4 road record that was the school's best in 16 years.
  > A complete absence of the dreaded "bad loss." Not until the regular-season finale at Alabama did Georgia lose to a team with a lesser RPI.
• Last season, 13 of Georgia's 31 games were considered "close" by either of the following definitions: either an overtime period or a 2-possession game inside the final minute of play. The Bulldogs were 5-8 in those games. This season, 16 of Georgia's 32 games thus far fit those definitions, including the first eight, and the Bulldogs are 12-4 in those contests. Additionally, nine of Georgia's games thus far have been decided on the final possession. The Tennessee game on Jan. 18 was the only one to NOT go Georgia's way.
• Just three Georgia teams in the past 20 years have finished their regular seasons with winning records on the road: 1991 (8-5), 1995 (7-5) and 2002 (6-5). The current squad -- with its 7-3 mark in road games -- has become the fourth team to earn that distinction.
• This year's Bulldogs became just the third Georgia squad in 30 years to go undefeated in December. The other two? Perhaps the two best teams in UGA history: 1982-83 and 2002-03.
• Another comparison to the 2003 season: Georgia sold out its first four games of the SEC schedule, its most consecutive sellouts since '03. That year, the final nine contests of the home schedule (Pitt + eight SEC games) sold out. Having completed its home schedule, Georgia's final average home attendance of 8,250 is the program's best since the 2004 season.
• Georgia's defensive FG percentage of .396 ranks just third in the SEC, but it is one of the best in UGA history. Only one other Bulldog team of the past 50 years (1997...final record of 24-9) held its opponents under 40 percent shooting for an entire season. No Georgia opponent in 32 tries thus far has shot over 50 percent from the field.
• Georgia guards Gerald Robinson and Dustin Ware recently reached 100 assists this season. The last time a Georgia team featured two 100-assist men was in 2001 (D.A. Layne & Rashad Wright). This year's duo marks the ninth time in UGA history two teammates reached 100 assists. One additional note about this: Travis Leslie enters the postseason needing eight assists to reach 100 for the season. No Georgia team has ever featured three 100-assist men.
• Dustin Ware could make a strong, credible case as Georgia's MVP of the conference schedule. The junior guard averaged 1.0 point per game higher scoring in league games, but the efficiency of his contribution is what stands out. Through the 16-game SEC schedule, Ware led the league in two categories: 3-point percentage (49.3) and, by a wide margin, assist-to-turnover ratio (3.4/1).
• Trey Thompkins recently became one of nine Bulldogs all-time to have amassed 1,200 points and 600 rebounds in a career. Just two of these luminaries, however, have done it in three years' time: Thompkins and career rebounding leader Bob Lienhard, who played before the dawn of freshman eligibility in 1972.
• This year's Georgia team has already won more true road games (7) than Georgia had won in the previous three seasons combined. The 2010 Bulldogs' road struggles appear to be an anomaly among teams coached by Mark Fox. In his 6+ years as a head coach, his teams have won an impressive 60 percent of their road games (53-35), and that mark includes last year's 0-11 record.
• Georgia is on track to have a positive Assist / Turnover Ratio for the first time since 2003. Leading the way is junior Dustin Ware, who ranks 3rd among all NCAA Division I players in this category in the most recent national rankings.
• Georgia led the SEC in rebounding margin through the 16-game league schedule. The Bulldogs were outrebounded just twice during that span. In their nine SEC wins, they have an average margin of +13.3, highlighted by +25 and +18 margins in wins over Miss. State and Auburn.

• This season Trey Thompkins has become the 40th player in UGA history to reach 1,000 for his career. The most recent Bulldog to reach that milestone was Terrance Woodbury in 2009. Already, Thompkins has climbed over 26 people on Georgia's career scoring chart with 1,370 points. Travis Leslie reached the milestone in the Florida game on Feb. 24. His career total of 1,087 becomes more impressive when you consider that he scored just 165 points (6.3/game) as a freshman and missed the final five games of the season.

• Last season head coach Mark Fox noted that Gerald Robinson, who sat out the 2010 year after transferring from Tennessee State, would have tilted the balance in Georgia's favor in several of its close games. Through December this season, Robinson delivered clutch plays that directly resulted in three Bulldog victories:
  11/20 at St. Louis: Robinson drove the lane, drew three defenders and, in heavy traffic, fed Jeremy Price for a game-winner with :01 left.
  12/2 vs. UAB: Robinson scored four points and had a key rebound in the final 14 seconds of perhaps the Bulldogs' best win of the season thus far.
  12/7 at Georgia Tech: Robinson scored a key basket and assisted Dustin Ware on the biggest bucket of the game, a 3-pointer that broke a 70-all tie with 18 seconds left.