Georgia defeats Texas 59-57 on last second rattle

Story via Will Baizer

With 8 seconds left in the game and down by 2 to the Georgia Bulldogs, the Longhorns had one last shot to tie or win the game.

Coming out of a timeout, the ball gets in-bounded to Kerwin Roach. Roach drives the ball down the court with time winding down.

5 seconds left and Roach dishes it to Allen who grabs the ball 10 feet away from the hook in the center of the court.

1 second left. Allen throws up the hook shot. It’s on target. It’s got the right power. It hits the front of the rim, rolls to the back of the rim… but rattles back over the front of the rim.

Georgia rebounds and wins this contest in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge.

It’s been one of those seasons. Texas is now 2-6 in game decided by 3 points or less and 0-6 on the road.

And it was déjà vu for Longhorn fans as they watched another 10 point lead slip out of the hands of the 7th youngest team in the nation (344/351).

The Longhorns went into the half with a lead of 32-23 and came out of it without scoring another point for the first 3 minutes of the 2nd half. However, the win really came off the heels of another scoreless run for the Longhorns starting with 7 minutes left in the 2nd half where UGA went on an 8-0 run, Shaq Cleare fouled out, and left Texas in a 7 point deficit they would never be able to claw their way out of.

The Longhorns just could not slow down the Bulldogs to veteran players PG J.J. Frazier who went for 14 PTS, 3 AST and Yante Maten who went for 21 PTS and 7 REB. Together they contributed to a vast majority of the offensive production against the Longhorns and came in the clutch for UGA when Texas made it with in 1 point of tying the game.

It was a day of struggles for the big men down low as James Banks, Shaq Cleare, and Jarrett Allen got into foul trouble early in the game and were out-worked by the big men of the Bulldogs. Georgia doesn’t shoot well from outside (shot 16.7% vs Texas), but the Longhorns let the Bulldogs get too many open looks from inside the arc.

Cleare had a tremendous game scoring 8 points before being taken out by a fifth foul. James Banks played well, but continues to struggle on the offensive side of the court. Jarrett Allen borrowed a few points from the game against Kansas as he continued to struggle only grabbing 4 points and 5 defensive rebounds. His struggles are a continuation of the Oklahoma game, where he could not establish himself down low and went 2-7 shooting.

The guards showed up in Athens, GA, but also didn’t take great care of the ball. Andrew Jones, Kerwin Roach, and Eric Davis each broke double digits in scoring.

Andrew Jones had his best game of his Texas career coming off his previous best game of his career (against Oklahoma). He scored 16 points, grabbed 4 boards, and had 8 assists. This was the type of production Shaka was hoping for… minus his 6 turnovers.

Kerwin Roach played tremendous defense (again), scored 10 points and grabbed 7 rebounds… but he also had 4 fouls and gave the ball away thrice.

Eric Davis is normalizing into the shooter he was last season, knocking down 2 threes and grabbing 11 points on the game.

Dating back to last season, the Longhorns have now lost 19 of their last 28 games.

But it was just another game of ups and downs where the Longhorns started off well, came to screeching halts, stayed stagnant for 3-5 minutes of game play, and lost a close game.

Texas is so close. Sunshine is just over this hill if the Longhorns would stop stepping on their own feet, tripping, and rolling all the way back down to the bottom of the hill.

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