UGA Men’s Basketball: Roberts and Oquendo Lead Georgia to 76-64 Win Over No. 22 Auburn

ATHENS, Ga. — The University of Georgia men’s basketball team earned its first win versus a ranked team in over a year by defeating the No. 22 Auburn Tigers, 76-64, before 10,232 spectators inside Stegeman Coliseum, thanks to strong offensive performances from junior Kario Oquendo and senior Terry Roberts, who combined for 43 of the team’s points.

Roberts led all scorers, tying his career-high in points with 26 on 8-of-16 shooting and three steals. Oquendo added 17 points himself, including a trio of 3-pointers and four rebounds. Junior Matthew-Alexander Moncrieffe was impactful all over the floor, setting season-bests in rebounds (nine), assists (three) and minutes played (31) while also contributing two steals. Georgia (11-3, 1-0 SEC) led for almost the entire game, only letting Auburn (11-3, 1-1 SEC) take the lead once.

“A big win for this team and our program to get started,” said Georgia head coach Mike White. “Off to a 1-0 start against a high-level program and high-level team in Auburn. Obviously, our best performance of the season and hopefully something that we can build upon. I thought we played really hard, Auburn did too. … Considering the defensive prowess of Auburn, I thought Terry really blossomed. We got great contributions from the bench. All five guys that came in off the bench played incredibly hard. I thought they were connected, and they made winning plays throughout.”

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UGA Football: Smart, Bennett, and Bullard Take Part in CFP Teleconference

COACH SMART: First of all, I’d like to thank the CFP for taking the time to put this together and having a great original semifinal game there at the Peach Bowl and now headed to the National Championship.

Our kids are really excited ready to head out to Cali we’ll be doing later this week. Looking forward to the opportunity. I’ve got a lot of respect for TCU and their program and Coach Dykes, what a tremendous job he’s done there.

Had the great fortune of seeing him and Max out at the Heisman Trophy ceremony and have so much respect for their program, them as people. And what a great opportunity it is to play in a large setting, in a great setting for a CFP National Championship.

Kirby, you probably know there’s a record number of points scored in those semifinals. With the playoff bracket being expanded, do you see any evidence of guys even at this point just being tired, what’s your reaction to that?
COACH SMART: I don’t know how to pinpoint it. I don’t know. Traditionally the teams that are in these games, they’re pretty good offensively. But you’d like to say they’re also pretty good defensively, but I think the studies and numbers indicate that as the season goes on and especially the semifinal and final games, scoring has to be going up. What that is, I can’t really pinpoint it. I don’t know that I would say it was just being tired because you could say that’s relative to offense as well that you can get tired on offense. You can get tired on defense.
But I certainly think it’s hard to play quality defense any more because I know we try really hard here and I know they do at TCU as well. Joe Gillespie does an unbelievable job, their defensive coordinator. And it seems that tackling becomes worse as the season goes on. And there’s more scoring. But I don’t know why that is.
I’ve been a part of some unique national championships with the LSU/Alabama ones and the rematch that was lower scoring but outside of that I’ve been part of a lot of shootouts.

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