ATLANTA – In its final non-conference game of the season, the Georgia men’s basketball team needed to make a statement in Georgia Tech’s Alexander Memorial Coliseum on Tuesday.

And the Dogs did just that, as once again that they couldn’t play a complete 40 minutes of basketball and were defeated by the Yellow Jackets 67-62 after squandering two 13-point second half leads.

“I thought we did a lot of things really well tonight,” Georgia head coach Dennis Felton said. “But the game slipped away form us for 3 main reasons: No. 1 – second shots, No. 2 – steals, and a big statistic was their eight block shots.”

Georgia (9-6, 0-0 Southeastern Conference) went into halftime with a 38-28 lead behind Thompkins (13 points) and Woodbury (11 points) before extending the advantage to 45-32 with 16:40 to play.

However, Georgia’s penchant for second half struggles continued into the 2009 calendar year as Tech (9-5, 0-1 Atlantic Coast Conference) slowly erased Georgia lead by going on an 19-6 run to tie the game at 51-apiece.

The run, which spanned more than 10 minutes, saw Georgia miss eight straight shots and commit seven turnovers.

Georgia allowed 23 rebounds on the offensive glass by the Yellow Jackets and at one point, allowed four consecutive second chance shots to Tech forward Zachery Peacock before he finally converted.

“Peacock won the game for them,” Felton said.

“It’s embarrassing,” Georgia forward Zac Swansey said of the offensive rebounds. “It’s simply embarrassing and we cannot win by doing that.”

Trey Thompkins finally broke Georgia’s field-goal drought in the second half with a layup at 6:53, temporarily giving the Dogs a two-point lead at 53-51, as it was their first made field goal in 1o minutes and 43 seconds.

The Dogs, of course, are no strangers to the hardwood on the Tech campus as it was the site of Georgia’s magical Southeastern Conference Tournament run last season after a Tornado had damaged the Georgia Dome.

A tornado warning had been issued to the metro-Atlanta area during the game, similar to March of last year, but the team said the situation was not the same.

“This is a whole different situation than last season,” Georgia senior Terrance Woodbury said. “Tech is a whole different team and I feel really bad that Corey [Butler] and I never beat them.”

Freshman Trey Thompkins (20 points) and Woodbury (15 points) were the only Bulldogs with double-digit points.

Georgia opens conference play on Saturday when it hosts No. 15 Tennessee at Stegeman Coliseum at noon.