Saturday, December 22, 2001
[ UH BASKETBALL ]
The precious little basketball prettiness so far in this year's Rainbow Classic has come from the team known as the 'Dawgs. Georgia goes from underdog
to biggest dogBy Dave Reardon
dreardon@starbulletin.comGeorgia, with shooting, strength and athleticism, is the most talented and complete team in the tournament, and plays like it most the time.
But even the Bulldogs -- or should they be the Puppies with a playing rotation of five sophomores and two juniors? -- have had lapses.
They came close to blowing a 21-point second-half lead last night, hanging on barely to beat Miami (Ohio) 64-59 and advance to tonight's championship game against Hawaii.
"We didn't mean to make it exciting," coach Jim Harrick said.
Georgia (11-1) is deep, and that helped. Harrick has fast healing by twins Jonas and Jarvis Hayes to thank for that.
Jonas has hair on his head, while Jarvis sports a clean-shaven pate. It was even easier to tell the 6-foot-6 sophomores apart a couple weeks ago; Jonas was the one with a cast on his dislocated left index finger, while Jarvis limped around with a sprained right knee.
Last night they helped put the hurt on the RedHawks.
Starting forward Jarvis scored 14 points with four rebounds and three assists, and Jonas came off the bench to contribute seven points and two rebounds.
"Jarvis was very sharp tonight," Harrick said. "Jonas is one of our best rebounders, but the finger is still bothering him."
Jonas said the finger hurts, but he fought through it in Thursday's 80-68 first-round victory over Arkansas State. He grabbed eight rebounds and scored six points in just 18 minutes. Jarvis scored a team-high 16 points with five boards.
They, along with big men Chris Daniels and Steve Thomas, augmented Ezra Williams' 17-point sharpshooting last night. Rashad Wright's six free throws down the stretch helped, too.
Wright's throws were crucial because the gifted Bulldogs nearly frittered away a 21-point second-half lead. Harrick blamed himself for going into a zone defense toward the end.
"I thought we were very efficient tonight, but we didn't rebound well in the second half." he said. "We played great man-to-man defense for 30 minutes. I don't know why the stupid coach decided to play zone."
But both Jonas and Jarvis admitted they and their teammates might have gotten a little too comfortable.
"That's the thing. We can kick it up a level, but we have to keep it at that level," Jarvis said. "We've got a lot of things to work on. We're a young team, we've got to learn that when we have a team down we have to put them out. I'm just glad Rashad made all those free throws."
With No. 10 Boston College (unbeaten coming into the tournament) losing to Miami in the first round Thursday, Georgia assumed the tournament-favorite hot seat.
That's tournament favorite, not crowd favorite, at least tonight.
Harrick doesn't mind.
"I know Hawaii's very hard to beat here. They'll have a loud crowd," he said on the eve of the teams' first meeting. And then, taking a friendly shot at his golf buddy, UH coach Riley Wallace, "Do they ever leave the island?"
UH Athletics
Ka Leo O Hawaii
