The Georgia men’s basketball team started the first five minutes of each half nearly perfect offensively.

It was the other 30 minutes that was the problem.

In Georgia’s 73-62 loss to Tennessee on Saturday, the Volunteers did not necessarily prove they were the better team, just the more consistent.

“You got to give Tennessee credit they made some key baskets in the second half,” Georgia head coach Mark Fox said. “I thought both teams played really hard. They made a couple of back-to-back threes that gave them the lead and we never could get it back.”

But as much as the Bulldogs (10-12, 1-7 SEC) struggled to put prolonged scoring runs together, the Georgia frontcourt did little to help.

The two Georgia starting forwards — Donte’ Williams and Marcus Thornton — played a combined 30 minutes and had five rebounds, two points and 10 fouls.

Despite Georgia’s numerous scoring droughts, Williams, Thornton and forward Nemanja Djurisic missed point-blank look after point-blank look.

Open layups, easy put-backs and even dunks all clanked off the rim for the Georgia frontcourt, only exasperating the Bulldogs’ scoring woes while the Georgia guards did all they could.

Mark Fox

Georgia’s three starting guards — Kentavious Caldwell-Pope, Dustin Ware, and Gerald Robinson — combined for 44 of Georgia’s 62 points on Saturday, the only Georgia players to reach double digits.

And fouls once again were a factor that plagued the Bulldogs.

Georgia’s foul trouble forced Fox to change from a man-to-man to a zone defense as Tennessee (11-12, 3-5) took full advantage.

Without the size of Williams and Thornton in the paint, the Volunteers were able to find holes in the Georgia zone.

“[We] had foul trouble really the entire game,” Fox said. “We had to play Jay Rome [with] five minutes left in the first half just because we had everyone with two fouls. Our foul trouble really started in the first half and it forced us to just sit in a zone a great deal in the second half and then Donte’ and Marcus both foul out and combine for 30 minutes. It’s just hard for us to be successful when we’re in that situation.

Trying to come back from a 17 percent shooting night on Wednesday against Auburn, Ware showed glimpses of the player who led the Southeastern Conference in 3-point percentage during SEC play at 49.3 percent.

Ware opened the game 5-for-5 in the first half, and 3-for-3 behind the 3-point arc for 13 first half points.

At one point, Ware scored eight of Georgia’s first 11 points as his shooting seemed contagious as Georgia went out to 27-19 lead on a Ware three.

But as has been the case all season, long scoring droughts again did Georgia in.

From the 5:10 mark on, without Thornton and Williams, Georgia did make a single field goal as the clean play of the Bulldogs seemed to disappear as Tennessee went on 11-1 run to end the first half.

The story was exactly the same in the second half.

Georgia jumped out to a 11-2 run to start the second half to take a 39-32 lead.

But as soon as the Bulldogs went even a little cold offensively, the Volunteers took advantage.

With the Bulldogs up 41-34, Tennessee made back-to-back 3-pointers in the span of just 36 seconds to cut the lead to just one.

From that point on Tennessee went on a 33-21 run to win the game 73-62.

Georgia will return home on Wednesday night to take on Arkansas at 8 p.m.