Georgia wins, again

And now we've won 3 of 4. I'm not ready to proclaim all is well and right. Actually, we've gotten to the part of the season where we should be winning games. Auburn is sporting an RPI of over 200, with an SOS of 138. Going on the road to beat a team that isn't in disarray (@Tennessee next week, for example) will help me believe change is afoot. The Dawgs are now 3-4 in the conference, with losses to a legitimate top five team (Florida, twice), legitimate'ish NCAA tourney team (Missouri) and arguably the biggest dumpster fire of a whole yard full of dumpster fires (Mississippi State).

So is it time to revise my upside prediction? I think it is reasonable to think we could win three (South Carolina twice and one of the other home games, like Texas A&M) to five (South Carolina twice and 3 of the other home games). Those five would put me at my predicted upside of 14-17. If we get to 8-10 in the SEC, we'll likely end up with a 5 or 6 seed in the SEC Tournament.

One last piece of reality therapy: Georgia is still a bad basketball team. Are we better than I have been giving credit for? Possibly, but I think that remains to be played out. Are we good enough that we could make a run at breaking .500 for the season? No. We'd need to win games we've shown we can't win without the other team falling apart (think Texas A&M and Southern Cal). We'd need to go 6-4 in the remaining schedule to ensure finishing the season with a .500 record. With six road games and only four home games left, that will require substantially better free throw shooting, more scoring opportunities created on the wing and on drives, and fewer turnovers from the big guys.

Still, the young team is coming together some, and it is better to win rather than lose. I'll take that for now.
TD