McPhee propels Bulldogs past UNC-Asheville, 79-58
November 25, 2009 by RYNE DENNIS
Filed under Sports
Led by a career high 20 points from Ricky McPhee, the Georgia basketball team defeated North Carolina-Asheville 79-58 Tuesday night.
“We were bigger than them and there’s not many games this year that we’re going to be more talented than the other team and tonight was a night that we were more talented,” Georgia head coach Mark Fox said.
McPhee connected on eight of his nine shots for the night including 4-for-5 from 3-point range in only 23 minutes of playing time. After struggling through the first three games of the season, the 6-foot-1 senior from Lawrenceville found his shot falling from the outside Tuesday.
“Ricky has really played pretty well for us this year but he’s had to carry so much of a load as a defender that I think it was effecting his offensive play,” Fox said. “He shot the ball well tonight, really well, and that’s going to be important for our team.”
With students out of town for the Thanksgiving holidays, a sparse crowd of 4,667 showed up to Stegeman Coliseum to see Georgia (2-2) shoot a season high 51.6 percent from the floor in a game that the Bulldogs of Athens led by double digits for a majority of.
Georgia’s Travis Leslie scored 17 points in as many minutes and Trey Thompkins added 16 points on the evening, with the two combining to shoot 13-for-19 from the floor.
Before we get too far ahead of ourselves about what seemed to be an impressive and much needed victory for Georgia, keep in mind that UNC-Asheville is now 0-4 and two contests ago lost by 75 points in Knoxville to No. 9 Tennessee. However, Georgia was looking for any bright spots after consecutive losses to Wofford and Alabama-Birmingham.
Due to the size of the lead, Georgia was able to play a lot of players a lot of minutes Tuesday night, with senior Albert Jackson coming off the bench to score 10 points and grab six rebounds.
The Bulldogs will now prepare to face Jacksonville State Friday, hoping to use the first four games of the season as a learning experience for a young team.
“We have to learn from our wins and our losses and hopefully we’ll go back and look at the tape tomorrow morning and get better,” Fox said.
