Georgia basketball reached its first NCAA tournament since 2015 last season. Can they make it two in a row in 2026?
The tradition continues! It’s another year of our countdown of the top 100 preseason teams in college basketball until the start of the season. Each day, we will reveal the next team until we reach the team slotted at number one. Up next: Georgia basketball.
Georgia basketball made its first tournament appearance since the Mark Fox era last season. That’s worth some measure of applause for the program and head coach Mike White. Fun fact: the last two times that the Florida Gators basketball program had losing records were the season directly prior to hiring Mike White and the season directly after letting him go. Georgia hired him to win games, and so far, he’s doing that. The Bulldogs had their first 20-win season since 2015 last year.
But they’ll have to adapt to a new roster (to a degree) if they want to return to the tournament this season. That’s mainly because both facets of their two-headed monster on offense are no longer with the program. One (Asa Newell) was selected with the 23rd overall pick in this summer’s NBA Draft. The other (Silas Demary Jr.) has transferred to UConn. But a few special players do return (Blue Cain, Dylan James, and Somto Cyril), and Mike White added a decent transfer haul to go along with a good freshman class.
UTSA transfer Smurf Millender will be the team’s starting point guard. He’s elite (43.8 3P%) from distance, and was adept last season at both distributing the ball (15th in AAC with 3.3 APG) and taking it away (6th in AAC with 1.7 SPG). Behind him will most likely be Saint Mary’s transfer Jordan Ross, who was a former four-star recruit in the class of 2023. He averaged 8.3 PPG in 35 starts for the Gaels last season, including one game of 19 points against Arizona State in the non-conference portion of the schedule.
The starting two-guard position will also be filled with a solid transfer from out west, which was apparently White’s modus operandi this offseason. Former Cal Golden Bear Jeremiah Wilkinson is now again in the state of Georgia. (He graduated from McEachern in Powder Springs.) He was a bucket as a freshman, with two handfuls worth of 20+ point outings, several of which came against ACC competition. Wilkinson will provide an immediate spark to the Bulldogs that they’ll need following the exodus of Demary Jr. and Newell. Wofford transfer Justin Bailey will provide a veteran presence and depth behind Wilkinson.
On the wing, one colorful name (Blue Cain) returns, while a highly-rated freshman (Jake Wilkins) also joins the fold. Wilkins and Cain both have the length (6’9″ and 6’5″, respectively) to compete physically in the SEC, though we’ve already seen that Cain can do so. Cain was at times a very good scorer last season, and he improved heavily on both the defensive side of the ball and at the line. Both will make an impact this season.
The power forward room is crowded this year in Athens. Returnee Dylan James (3.2 PPG, 2.2 RPG) and BYU transfer Kanon Catchings (7.2 PPG, 2.2 RPG) will battle it out for the starting role, while freshman Kareem Stagg, a four-star prospect in the class of 2025, also figures to play a role. Who grabs the starting spot by the beginning of the season is anyone’s guess.
Big things might be ahead for Somto Cyril. A highly-rated recruit in the class of 2024, he was somewhat overshadowed by a huge year from Newell last season, but he’s ready to slide into the starting center position for the ‘Dawgs this season. Already a force defensively (1.5 BPG), Cyril will likely need to make more of an impact offensively to truly break out.
Former App State transfer Justin Abson didn’t play all that much for Georgia last season (9.5 PPG), but he was a glue guy when he was on the court. His PER of 17.6 was third on the team, behind only Newell and Cyril last season.
Finally, there’s freshman Jackson McVey, who has potential as a seven-footer but likely will need time to adjust to power five basketball. Georgia has a quietly impressive group of offensive and defensive talent prior to the 2025-26 season, but the key will be putting it all together into an efficient product. Who better to do that than Mike White? Georgia athletics knows this, which is why White just signed an extension into 2031 that bumped his pay up to $3.91 million per year.
Head coach: Mike White (4th season at Georgia, 15th season overall)
2024-25 record: 20-13 (8-10)
2025 postseason finish:Â Lost in Round of 64 to Gonzaga, 89-68
Notable departures:Â
- Asa Newell (15.4 PPG, 6.9 RPG, 0.9 APG)
- Silas Demary Jr. (13.5 PPG, 3.9 RPG, 3.1 APG)
- Dakota Leffew (9.4 PPG, 2.0 RPG, 1.7 APG)
- Tyrin Lawrence (8.3 PPG, 3.2 RPG, 2.4 APG)
Notable non-conference games:Â
- vs. Georgia Tech (Nov. 14)
- vs. Xavier (Nov. 21) – Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic
- vs. Clemson OR West Virginia (Nov. 23) – Shriners Children’s Charleston Classic
- at Florida State (Dec. 2)
- vs. Cincinnati (Dec. 13) – Atlanta
Projected Rotation
PG: Smurf Millender (5-11, 175, Jr.)
2024-25 stats: 14.9 PPG, 3.3 APG, 3.0 RPG, 43.8 3P% (UTSA)
SG: Jeremiah Wilkinson (6-1, 185, So.)
2024-25 stats: 15.1 PPG, 1.9 RPG, 1.5 APG (Cal)
SF: Blue Cain (6-5, 195, Jr.)
2023-24 stats: 9.6 PPG, 4.2 RPG, 1.5 APG, 1.4 SPG
PF: Dylan James (6-9, 215, Jr.)
2024-25 stats: 3.2 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 0.6 APG
C: Somto Cyril (6-11, 260, So.)
2024-25 stats: 4.6 PPG, 3.8 RPG, 0.5 APG, 1.5 BPG
6: Kanon Catchings (6-9, 220, So.)
2024-25 stats: 7.2 PPG, 2.2 RPG, 0.7 APG (BYU)
7: Jordan Ross (6-3, 195, Jr.)
2024-25 stats: 8.3 PPG, 3.1 RPG, 2.6 APG (Saint Mary’s)
8: Jake Wilkins (6-9, 185, Fr.)
247Sports Composite No. 45 Recruit in Class of 2025
9: Justin Bailey (6-3, 195, Sr.)
2024-25 stats: 9.6 PPG, 3.5 RPG, 1.7 APG (Wofford)
10: Justin Abson (6-9, 250, Sr.)
2024-25 stats: 2.2 PPG, 2.1 RPG, 0.8 APG
11: Kareem Stagg (6-8, 230, Fr.)
247Sports Composite No. 74 Recruit in Class of 2025
12: Jackson McVey (7-1, 240, Fr.)
247Sports Composite No. 283 Recruit in Class of 2025
13: Jaden Newell (6-8, 225, Rs.-Jr.)
2024-25 stats: 0.4 PPG, 0.3 RPG, 0.0 APG, 1.3 MPG, 7 GP
Georgia Basketball team MVP: Blue Cain
Cain has the ability to turn on fire from the field on occasion. (He has five career games of 4+ threes made.) But his game is not one-dimensional. In an 81-62 win over LSU last season, he scored 10 points, brought down 10 rebounds, and added 8 assists. A month later, he scored 17 points in the SEC tournament against Oklahoma and tallied five steals in the same game. Both Cain and Dylan James are still with the program after being part of Mike White’s first full recruiting class in 2023, which speaks to the trust they have in their coach.
Cain might need to shoulder more of the offensive load this season after Newell and Demary Jr. are both no longer in Athens. While he has clearly shown a knack for scoring, Cain needs to be more consistent in his game. Cain had seven starts last season in which he scored six points or less.
Georgia Basketball make-or-break player: Jeremiah Wilkinson
The Georgia native didn’t do all that much but score last season as a freshman with Cal, but he made up for the lack of rebounds and assists with consistently putting the ball in the basket. In fact, he was second on the team in PPG with 15.1, was named to the ACC All-Freshman team, and earned ACC Sixth Man of the Year honors. Is that good? It ain’t bad. His best performance might’ve come in a loss. On an otherwise normal Saturday in early March, the Notre Dame Fighting Irish defeated the Cal Golden Bears in quadruple overtime, 112-110. Wilkinson scored 36 in the game, connecting on 11-18 shots from the field. That was just one of ten 20+ point games for the freshman, who scored a team-high in points 12 times throughout the season.
Now in his sophomore season, Wilkinson is coming home to continue to score in the SEC, and he’ll have the starting shooting guard position in a Mike White offense as an opportunity to do so. A starting backcourt of Smurf Millender, Wilkinson, and Blue Cain? That’ll be hard to stop, even with the loss of Demary Jr. to UConn.
Key analytic: Opponent fouls per game
Georgia basketball was elite at drawing fouls last season. In fact, they averaged 19.8 drawn fouls per game, 12th-best in the nation. The Bulldogs drew 24+ fouls in seven different contests last season and won all of them. That included victories over Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Georgia Tech (on the road). On the flip side, when Georgia failed to draw fouls, they struggled overall. In the eight games in which the Bulldogs drew 16 or fewer fouls, they only managed a 2-6 record. Those six losses were all conference matchups. So to rephrase, 60% of the team’s SEC losses came when the Bulldogs drew 16 or fewer fouls.
Somto Cyril and Silas Demary Jr. were the best on the team in terms of getting to the line (per 100 possessions), and while Demary Jr. is gone, Cyril returns as the team’s presumptive starting center. Does the rest of the frontcourt (and possibly the backcourt) have the ability to get to the line at a similar pace as last year? At the least, we know Jeremiah Wilkinson does. (9.4 FTA/100 possessions).
Georgia Basketball 2025-26 projections
Projected conference finish:Â 12th in the SEC
Projected postseason ceiling:Â NCAA Tournament Second Round Exit