Alabama Basketball: Hard to tell how good are the Georgia Bulldogs

Alabama Basketball: Georgia Bulldogs are a difficult team to assess, with good winning streaks and bad losing streaks.

Alabama Basketball will be favored to win its eighth straight home game Saturday afternoon. The Alabama Crimson Tide has lost only once in Tuscaloosa this season, the disappointing two-point loss to Western Kentucky on Dec. 19.

Oddsmakers and college basketball experts will make the Crimson Tide a double-digit favorite over the Bulldogs. For the injury-ridden Crimson Tide, expectations of easy victories are not currently realistic.

The Georgia Bulldogs are the No. 8 team in the SEC, with an overall record of 12-7 and an SEC record of 5-7. Tom Crean’s team started the season well, rushing out to a 7-0 start before SEC play began. It was the best start for a Georgia team since their 1983 Final Four team. The wins were not against top competition, with the best win over the Northeastern Huskies who are now 8-6. The Dawgs blew out the Huskies by 18 points and opened their SEC schedule a week later, losing by 10 to Mississippi State on the road.

The Bulldogs’ first eight SEC games gave them a 2-6 SEC record, with two close wins over Ole Miss and Kentucky. In their four SEC games since Georgia was 3-1. The loss came Wednesday night in Knoxville, by eight points to the Tennessee Vols.

A healthy Crimson Tide would be expected to win easily over the Bulldogs. Nate Oats’ team is far from healthy. Georgia will not have a dominating inside player to challenge the Crimson Tide. The biggest Bulldog who gets double-digit minutes is 6-feet-8, Toumani Camara. Sahvir Wheeler leads the SEC in assists and he leads the Bulldogs in scoring with 13.5 points per game. The Bulldogs are third in the league in field goal shooting at 46.8 percent. They are not heavily reliant on threes, making 32.6 percent of 368 attempts, compared to 625 attempts by the Crimson Tide.

Even more than the Crimson Tide, turnovers have been a problem for the Bulldogs. What they don’t do is quit. The Bulldogs trailed by 23 points midway through the second half in Knoxville. They fought back to a six-point deficit late.

While technically not reaching ‘must-win’ status, losing to the Bulldogs would damage the Crimson Tide NCAA resume. In the latest NCAA NET Ranking, Georgia is No. 93 would be a Quad 3 loss for the Tide. The Alabama Crimson Tide is currently ranked No. 10.