IHTIT: Tennessee Vols vs. Georgia Bulldogs Basketball Preview 2025
You can't spell "foul shot" without UGA... apparently.
Recently
Tennessee (#6 AP, 15-1, 2-1 SEC) overcame Tuesday’s disaster at Florida to beat Texas on the road 74-70. The Vols lost an early lead around the 7:00 mark of the first half and didn’t regain it until about 4:00 left in the game, led by some heroics off the bench from Darlinstone Dubar: with 11:45 left, an offensive rebound & made FT kept UT’s win probability over 50%. At 6:42 Dubar’s dunk off Gainey’s missed 3 raised UTs win probability from 43.6% to 56.4%. And at 3:57 Dubar’s 3 put UT’s win probability over 50% permanently.
Georgia (#23 AP, 14-2, 2-1 SEC) comes to Knoxville off back-to-back ranked home wins against Kentucky and Oklahoma. UGA began their SEC schedule with a loss at Ole Miss; the Dawgs didn’t face much competition in the non-conference portion of the season but did beat Notre Dame and St. John’s while losing to Marquette.
Previously on Vols vs. Dawgs
The Vols had to scrap at Stegman last season to escape with a 85-79 win. A 14-point lead melted in the second half as the Dawgs took command, opening their own advantage all the way up to 11. But it wasn’t enough as Dalton Knecht had one of his legacy games, pouring in 36 points, including the 3 that put UT up for good with 1:56 left in the game. It was Tennessee’s 4th straight win in the series, and 6th of the last 10. All-time, the Vols lead the series 99-62, and are 60-16 in Knoxville.
Preview
Bullets
SF #0 Blue Cain grew up in Knoxville and was all-state at Knox Catholic before finishing HS at IMG. The broadcast will remind of this fact roughly one billion times Wednesday night (also UGA HC Mike White is Danny White’s brother).
C #14 Asa Newell has been named SEC Freshman of the Week three times this season, including following last week’s wins against UK and OKU. Newell was Georgia’s leading scorer in those games, averaging 16 points.
In addition to Newell’s output, both SG #1 Dakota Leffew and reserve G #5 Silas Demary have led the Dawgs in scoring, hitting double-digits in 11 and 12 games, respectively.
UGA get 18.1% of their 2-point FGs from dunks (3rd highest in the nation), earning them the nickname “Dunkyard Dawgs” (which, ok, that’s pretty good).
The other hallmark of UGA’s success this season has been free throws. In fact barttorvik.com has the Dawgs free throw rate much higher than what is in the graph above—at 43.6%, top 20 nationally. Georgia was 29/38 from the line against Kentucky (UK was 15/19) and 27/37 against Oklahoma (the Sooners were just 7/9).
Prediction
While Georgia’s strength has been getting the ball to the rim (45% of their offense is “close twos”) and slamming it home (18% of those “close twos”), Tennessee has been equally adept at keeping teams from doing just that. Of “close twos” made by opposing teams, only about 4% of those have been dunks (top in the SEC). The Vols would rather force you outside, where opponents make just 31.8% of their threes (third best in the SEC).
The question is, what kind of whistle will this game get? Georgia has five games this year where they’ve attempted 20+ more free throws than their opponents have. UGA has had nine game this season where they made as many or more FTs than their opponents attempted. Every one of those games came at home except one—and that was at Georgia Tech. Can the Bulldogs get a friendly whistle on the road? If Tennessee’s physical brand of defense gets punished by the men in stripes, and Georgia finds a way to live at the line all night, it could be a rough one for the Vols. However, if Tennessee is allowed to play their normal style on their own court—and you’d hope that will be the case—then Tennessee should be able to handle business in what will be a competitive game. Vols 71, Dawgs 60.