The Georgia men’s basketball team has not started games well this season.

In turn, the Bulldogs have grown accustomed to fighting back from big deficits.

Against Ole Miss last Saturday — after being down as much as 15 midway through the second half — the Bulldogs played a complete five minutes to end the game and had two looks to tie the game as time expired.

Georgia's inability to put together complete performances for 40 minutes has given head coach Mark Fox headaches all season. FILE/The Red & Black

But their last-ditch effort could not make up for the first 35 minutes that was marred by inconsistent play.

“We didn’t deserve a chance to win [the game] in my opinion,” Georgia head coach Mark Fox said. “We just decided to play a little harder and more physical in the second half. We decided we were going to defend a little better and compete on the glass a little bit. But we still had some plays I know we’d like to have back.”

For a team that has had a season of inconsistent game play, Fox has coined a term to explain his young team’s up-and-down rollercoaster ride throughout the course of a game — “immature competitors.”

“We’re immature as competitors, and so we don’t string together the minutes like we should,” he said. “We still have two-minute droughts, or two [minutes] of bad plays, or a minute here or there that separates winning from losing.”

Sophomore forward Donte’ Williams agreed with his coach’s assessment of the team.

“[Sometimes] we just play hard for the last two minutes and not the other 38 minutes in a game,” Williams said. 

“When it’s time to play, that’s when we play. While other times in the first half we just play off, miss some shots, miss some rebounds, not play [defense], but that’s probably one of the reasons [for our struggles].”

Georgia’s issues have usually come from the defensive end, where they go through huge lapses of defensive miscues.

In their most recent game against No. 1 Kentucky, after pulling within one, the Bulldogs allowed the Wildcats to go on a 15-4 run to end the first half to take a 38-26 lead into the locker room — and it was a run the Bulldogs would never be able to recover from.

The run was full of wide-open 3-pointers and uncontested dunks as the Wildcats exposed the holes in the porous Bulldog defense.

“Our defense needs to be more consistent,” Fox said after the game. “Our second half defense was better than our first and that’s something we have to establish… I’ve been a little disappointed in the consistency of our defense.”

When Georgia has played a complete defensive game, the results have usually been wins.

In their 57-53 overtime win against Tennessee, the Bulldogs played one of their best games defensively, holding the Volunteers to just 40 percent shooting.

The Bulldogs managed to hold Kentucky — the second highest-scoring team in the SEC at 78.4 points per game — to just 19 points in the second half and 57 for the game, a season-low. 

If not for one Wildcat run and one lapse in defensive coverage, the Bulldogs might have had a real chance for the upset.

But strong defense has not been the norm this season as the “immature competitors” have shown up on most nights, leading to a frustrated team that knows they are not living up to its potential.

“I don’t know what it is but it’s very, very frustrating,” freshman Nemanja Djurisic said. “Especially after losses and especially after the way we practice. It’s very frustrating not playing well in the first half.”

“It’s frustrating to watch,” Williams added. “[For me] watching [us] the last few minutes and the way [we are] playing, [I’m] thinking if we play like that the whole 40 minutes, we could probably win the game by 15 or more.”  

Although there has not been one solution to the team’s problems, some players do have some theories on how to right the problems.

“Having a win sometimes carries over to the start of the next game,” junior guard Sherrard Brantley said. 

“Then sometimes [we come] out sluggish because we are still happy from the last game and then we come out losing to start the next game, and its hard to come back [from that]. That happened to us against Ole Miss [after we beat Tennessee].”

“It’s a mindset, preparing yourself before the game, having the right preparation,” Williams added. “It’s kinda mental. We have to execute [how we prepare] before the game.”

But even though the struggles have at times created frustration and disappointment for the team, which has won just one conference game in six attempts this season, Fox still believes that the Bulldogs are not by any stretch of the imagination a “bad team.” 

Instead, he believes they are building toward a better future.

“We still have had some good minutes, and we’re getting better, and we’re having a tough start to SEC play,” Fox said. “But I don’t think, by any stretch of the means we’re an awful basketball team. We haven’t played well, but I think if we can just become a little more consistent and more mature, when the clock’s ticking, we can continue to get better.”