Five students in the corner of Stegeman Coliseum were dressed up as “Smurfs” to show support for Georgia basketball guard Marcus “Smurf” Millender for the Bulldogs’ SEC tilt with Tennessee.
The 5-foot-11 transfer guard from UTSA had hit game-winning shots against Xavier and Missouri in his first Bulldog season and made another clutch bucket on a drive to force overtime with 3.6 seconds to go in regulation.
But Millender’s final two points were ones he almost certainly wishes he could have had back in an 86-85 overtime loss on Wednesday Jan. 28.
Georgia trailed by 3 with a chance to tie the game after a Tennessee timeout with 15.7 seconds to play.
Millender brought the ball up court, gave it to Blue Cain who passed it back to Millender near the midcourt logo with under 5 seconds to play. Instead of trying to work for a 3, Millender attacked the basket without resistance as he went by Bishop Boswell and scored a layup with 0,6 seconds left.
Tennessee inbounded the ball and it was game over.
“He’s really mad at himself right now because he cares so much about winning,” guard Jordan Ross said. “We all trust Smurf. We trust the ball in his hands. We trust his decision-making.”
Millender was not available for interviews postgame.
“Smurf, any mistake made is outweighed about how much he does off the court and on the court,” said forward Kanon Catchings, who led Georgia with 22 points and had five rebounds. “He plays hard all the time. He does all the right things. You can’t really get too mad at him.”
Millender, a junior from Houston, touched his head after the score.
“I didn’t even talk to him about it,” coach Mike White said. “I know Smurf was as down as anyone in the locker room after the game. I told him and I told all the guys, I thought Smurf played as well as anybody on our team tonight. Everyone in our locker room made mistakes during that game, including myself.”
Millender had just hit a 3 with 16.8 seconds to go to cut the lead to 85-83 and Felix Okpara made 1 of 2 free throws to push the lead to 86-83.
Tennessee called timeout.
White said Georgia would have taken a quick two from Cain. He said he thought Catchings may have a “decent” look as well, but Tennessee made a switch on defense that “caused a little bit of chaos,” he said.
“It’s big moments, it’s young people,” White said. “I know late in games with the clock running down, he’s made probably a dozen, huge positive plays for our program. I thought he was really good tonight. We’ve got to execute a little bit better down the stretch of course, but I believe in Smurf.”
Millender scored 17 of his 19 points after halftime and had a team-high four assists.
Those fans dressed as “Smurfs,” donned in blue from above their chests all the way up their white beanies, have had reason to give him his own cheering section.
Millender entered the game second on Georgia (16-5, 4-4 SEC) in scoring in league play at 13.6 points per game and leads the team with 74 assists.
White said he thought Millender lost track of time, perhaps thinking there were still 6 or 7 seconds left when he scored.
Georgia’s rebounding also contributed to the loss. It was outrebounded 52-27 against a much bigger Vols team.
The Volunteers had one less offensive rebound than Georgia had total rebounds.
Tennessee had 24 second-chance points compared to four for Georgia.
Georgia was coming off an 87-67 beatdown at Texas, but White said he liked his team’s fight and effort even with the end-of-game sequence.
“The fact that we still had a chance in overtime despite those numbers shows you we were flying around and doing some good things,” White said. “We did a lot of good things. If they get 18 offensive rebounds instead of 26, it still would have been too many, but we would have walked out of here with a big win.”
As for Millender, White said he’s “probably our hardest worker” and expects him to get back to work soon ahead of Saturday’s game with Texas A&M.
“He’ll be in the gym at 8 tomorrow morning,” White said. “I guarantee it.”
Read more on Athens Banner-Herald
