The college basketball offseason is here, and we decided to have some fun over the next few months, ranking ALL 364 teams in D1. Number 153 is Georgia basketball.
Before you say we’re crazy – or that all of this is up for debate, let’s go over the very intricate process of how we came to this conclusion. We took a very statistical approach – with the help of Chat GPT – taking into consideration everything from March Madness wins and finishes, to AP Poll appearances, to conference players of the year. And then, a good friend of ours, Scott Blanchard, took our approach to the MAX.
Click here to visit the FIRST article, which explains how the formula works!
Here’s the breakdown of Georgia basketball!
NCAA Tournament Success
- Championships: 0
- Finals appearances: 0
- Final Fours: 1
- Elite Eights: 1
- Sweet 16s: 2
- NCAA wins: 7
- Bids: 14
Consistency Over Time
- Wins per season: 12.7
- Bids per season: 0.12
- AP Polls: 72
Player Quality & Talent
- All-Americans: 0
- NBA players drafted & played: 18
- Conference Players of the Year: 2
Conference & Other Success
- Conference regular season titles: 2
- Conference tournament titles: 3
- NIT titles: 0
- Other tournament titles: 0
Overall scoop on Georgia basketball
We’re starting to get into a groove with some more Power Five programs as Georgia comes in at No. 153. The Bulldogs might not be a top-end SEC hoops school, but they have more history than you might remember.
For starters, lots of players drafted and gone on to play in the NBA, including two stars – Hall of Famer Dominique Wilkins and future HOFer Anthony Edwards.
Wilkins played from 1979-82, getting named to the All-SEC Team all three years he was in Athens. He averaged 21.6 points per game for his collegiate career, leading the SEC with 23.6 PPG as a sophomore. Wilkins would leave for the NBA as a junior, and the very next season, he missed out on Georgia’s Final Four run, led by Vern Fleming, Terry Fair, James Banks, and more. Had he stayed, there is room to argue the Bulldogs would have cut down the nets for a championship. But of course, he would go on to have a fantastic NBA career, scoring nearly 27,000 points and grabbing over 7,000 rebounds.
Edwards was a one-and-done on a Bulldogs team that went 16-16. But it was easy to tell that he could be something special in the NBA. The “Ant Man” has already eclipsed the 10,000 career points mark, despite getting drafted in 2020. He should have a decade or longer if he stays healthy to possibly go past Wilkins as the greatest player to ever come out of UGA.
Other NBA stars to play for the Bulldogs include the aforementioned Fleming, Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, and Willie Anderson. It certainly isn’t a school that produces tons of NBA talent, but it’s easily the most notable we’ve had so far in these rankings.
In terms of March Madness success, the Final Four run sits alone on its own pedestal, but Georgia also made a Sweet 16 as an 8-seed in 1996. Tubby Smith was the head coach, and UGA knocked off 1-seed Purdue, before falling to 4-seed Syracuse, just shy of the Elite 8.
Historically, Georgia has been around for a while, but didn’t do a lot in the early, pre-modern era years. Herman Stegeman was the exception, going 170-79 as their coach between 1919 and 1931. In his final season, the Bulldogs went 23-2.
Georgia wouldn’t find any sort of lasting success until Hugh Durham showed up in 1978. Coming from Florida State, he stayed with the program until 1995, having just two losing seasons with Georgia, and both were very close to .500 records. He coached them to five NCAA Tournaments, including the Final Four run, and led the Bulldogs to an SEC regular season championship in 1990. Of Durham’s 634 career wins, 298 came at UGA.
Tubby Smith replaced Durham, but only coached two (very successful) seasons before leaving for Kentucky. A little later on, Jim Harrick would lead UGA to the big dance in two of his four seasons, but was let go after his son, an assistant, was allegedly aiding in academic fraud. It was a pretty wild story, so read up.
Since the early 2000s, it has been a little more hit-or-miss. Georgia went dancing in 2008, 2011, and 2015, with Dennis Felton taking them there the first time, and Mark Fox the next two. After four rough seasons under Tom Crean, Michael White got the job and has taken UGA to back-to-back tournaments. They haven’t won a game in March under White, but got stuck in the 8-9 seed games both years. At least that’s the mark of a solid, at-large program.
Overall, Georgia’s best years were under Durham, but they’ve found a way to stay somewhat relevant since then. And if White’s tenure continues how it’s going, Georgia could be on the map in the coming years.