Georgia @ Texas A&M preview

Last Meeting ( Feb 28, 2018 ) Texas A&M 61, Georgia 60

Texas A&M experienced a rare SEC victory on Saturday and Georgia hopes to experience the same feeling when it visits the Aggies on Tuesday in a matchup of two teams that have combined for three league victories in 19 games this season. The Aggies had dropped six conference games in a row and were heading to a seventh at Missouri, but down 12 points in the second half, Texas A&M clamped down on defense en route to a 68-59 triumph.

“We just had to play a little harder and execute on defense, honestly,” Aggies junior guard Wendell Mitchell told reporters after scoring a team-high 20 points, the fourth time in the past six games he has scored 20 or more points. It also helped that Texas A&M shot 60 percent from the field after halftime and finished at 49 percent overall, the Aggies’ best shooting night in SEC play this season. There has been no such positive showing for the Bulldogs in league action since a victory over Vanderbilt back on Jan. 9, and the struggles continued in an ugly 80-64 home defeat to Mississippi on Saturday while more than 90 former Georgia players and coaches were in attendance. “I’m embarrassed right now to be honest with you,” Georgia coach Tom Crean told the media afterward.

TV: 7 p.m. ET, SEC Network

ABOUT GEORGIA (10-13, 1-9 SEC): Very little that went right Saturday as 16 first-half turnovers put Georgia in a 12-point deficit at intermission. Sophomore forward Rayshaun Hammonds was one of the three Bulldogs to score 10 points, but he fouled out with five minutes remaining and sophomore forward Nicolas Claxton didn’t score in the first half en route to finishing with just eight points. Georgia has allowed 80-plus points in five of its past six games after giving up that many just four times in its first 17 games.

ABOUT TEXAS A&M (9-13, 2-8): Sophomore guard T.J. Starks came off the bench for just the fourth time this season, scoring 15 points to fuel the Aggies’ rally. Mitchell has raised his scoring average to 12.7 points per game by scoring 18.3 points per game in his past six contests. The Aggies rank last in the SEC and 317th nationally in 3-point shooting at 30.6 percent, but are shooting 42.6 percent from long range in their past three games.

TIP-INS

1. Georgia junior G Jordan Harris recorded his first career double-double Saturday with 10 points and a career-high 11 rebounds.

2. Texas A&M played Saturday without junior F Josh Nebo due to a sprained medial collateral ligament in his knee; Nebo is 11th in the nation in blocked shots per game (2.48).

3. The Aggies have been outscored by 1.3 points per game this season, the worst mark in the SEC and one spot behind Georgia (-0.7).

PREDICTION: Texas A&M 78, Georgia 71