California Fails Its First Test

By Robyn Norwood

Dec. 8, 2002 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

California was still waiting for its first real test of the basketball season.

Georgia has been tested time and time again, already losing one game and winning another on buzzer-beating shots.

Their game Saturday went to the wire and beyond, as Georgia took a 78-73 overtime victory in the Wooden Classic at the Arrowhead Pond of Anaheim.

“It’s something we look forward to,” Georgia guard Ezra Williams said.

Cal hadn’t lost after three games, but the competition had been modest.

Down the stretch and in overtime against Georgia (3-3), the Bears turned skittish and forced shots, and Jim Harrick’s Bulldogs tightened their defense and handed Cal its first loss.

“We know we had our opportunities,” Cal Coach Ben Braun said. “That’s kind of hard to swallow.”

Cal led by one in the final two minutes of regulation, but Joe Shipp shot an airball on a three-pointer as the shot clock ran down on one possession, and Amit Tamir missed the front end of a one-and-one with 1:01 left.

Georgia’s Jarvis Hayes, who scored 18 points and did much of the defensive work in holding Shipp to 12 points after consecutive 30-point games, made a jumper as the shot clock ran down with 27 seconds left for a one-point lead.

Then Cal’s Brian Wethers, fouled by Williams with 14 seconds left, made the front end of a one-and-one to tie the score, 69-69.

But after Wethers missed the second shot, Cal got the rebound but turned the ball over, and Georgia missed a shot at the regulation buzzer.

Overtime belonged to Georgia, with Williams hitting a big three-pointer and Cal’s Tamir missing from three-point range with the Bears trailing by three on their confused final possession.

“I was disappointed we couldn’t pull it out,” said Tamir, who led all scorers with 27 points and 11 rebounds and made five of nine three-pointers but didn’t score in overtime.

“We didn’t move the ball around and didn’t try to break them down by moving the ball from side to side.”

Wethers, who added 15, agreed.

“I think we lost a little bit of patience down the stretch, and that hurt us,” Wethers said.

Williams led Georgia with 23 points and made five of nine three-pointers, but Harrick praised his team’s defense.

“I thought the last 10 minutes -- the last five minutes of the game and five minutes of overtime -- I thought we really guarded them,” he said. “Especially at the end, I really felt our warrior was Chris Daniels. Even though Tamir got 27 points and 11 rebounds, down the stretch, I thought we guarded him really, really well, especially in overtime.”

Both these teams reached the second round of the NCAA tournament last season, and both are trying to find themselves this season.

Cal lost starters Jamal Sampson and Shantay Legans from last season’s team, and Georgia is waiting for the return of its only center Steve Thomas, who was academically ineligible for the first semester.

Cal had beaten New Mexico, Cleveland State and Howard, and didn’t know a lot more about its team than when it started the season.

Georgia, ranked 16th in the nation in the preseason poll, opened with a close loss to now No. 2 Texas and beat Belmont before losing to rival Georgia Tech.

Then came the Bulldogs’ wild trio of games: They lost to Minnesota on a buzzer-beater Nov. 30 and fell out of the top 25 before beating Colorado on a buzzer-beater Tuesday. Now add the overtime victory over Cal.

“When you get to March and you’ve got a win over a Big 12 team on the road and a Pac-10 team on a neutral court, that helps you,” Harrick said.

“To win on the road will show up in March, and for your team’s psyche and team’s confidence it’s huge.”