Kenny Gaines lifts Georgia past Seton Hall

ATHENS — Kenny Gaines scored 15 points, Marcus Thornton added 13 and Georgia easily beat Seton Hall 65-47 on Sunday night.

Playing their best game of the season, the Bulldogs (6-3) had been off since beating Colorado at home Dec. 7.

Fresh legs helped Georgia outrebound the Pirates by 19 and outscore them 16-0 on fastbreak points.

Brandon Mobley, Khadeen Carrington and Desi Rodriguez each scored eight points to lead Seton Hall (9-2). The Pirates were coming off a 20-point victory at South Florida Thursday, but looked sluggish from the start.

Seton Hall never led, missing nine of its first 12 field-goal attempts and trailing 22-7 when coach Kevin Willard called timeout at the 12:09 mark of first half.

Gaines made his seventh start despite being a game-time decision with a shoulder injury sustained against Colorado. He had two fastbreak dunks that brought big cheers from the crowd in the second half.

The Bulldogs led by double digits the rest of the game after Charles Mann’s layup made it 18-7 midway through the first half.

Juwan Parker’s 3-pointer in the final minute of the first gave the Bulldogs a 21-point lead. They went up by 22 on Thornton’s three-point play early in the second.

Nemanja Djurisic played with flu-like symptoms, but dunked to give Georgia a 24-point lead midway through the second and finished with eight points.

Sterling Gibbs, Seton Hall’s leading scorer this season, missed his first seven field-goal attempts before his layup cut the lead to 21 with 15:50 remaining. The junior guard finished with just three points on 1-for-11 shooting.

Gibbs scored in double figures in the Pirates’ first 10 games, but his teammates did no better. Seton Hall was just 2 for 18 on 3-point attempts and handed out only seven assists to Georgia’s 14.

TIP-INS

Seton Hall: Freshman Isaiah Whitehead, the Pirates’ second-leading scorer this season, picked up his fourth foul early in the second half and finished with five points and five rebounds.

Georgia: Reserve point guard J.J. Frazier had six points, six rebounds, five assists and three steals in the first half as the Bulldogs took a 41-22 lead at intermission. The sophomore finished with a career-high 11 boards.