Historic night for Hoop Dawgs' Sahvir Wheeler
Historic night for Hoop Dawgs' Sahvir Wheeler
Wheeler records UGA's first ever triple-double
Georgia basketball player Sahvir Wheeler (2) during a game against LSU at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens, Ga., on Tuesday, Feb. 23, 2021. (Photo by Tony Walsh)
Georgia sophomore Sahvir Wheeler ended Monday’s media availability by correcting the saying of his name. After Georgia’s dominating 91-78 win over LSU on Tuesday night, it’s highly unlikely that any member of the media or fanbase will mispronounce his name again.
The 5-foot-10, 180-pound sophomore guard made Georgia history as he recorded the program’s first-ever triple-double, which is very rare in college basketball. According to UGASports.com’s Anthony Dasher, Duke has only four career triple-doubles and UNC only has two. Wheeler had 14 points, 11 rebounds and 13 assists in the win over the Tigers.
Georgia head coach Tom Crean agreed with what Dasher tweeted.
“It’s very, very rare,” Crean said after the game. “It’s never going to sink in when it happens immediately. But it’s also a very profound thing to have somebody accomplish that at such a young age in such a prestigious league against a really, really good opponent like that.”
Wheeler scored a career-high 27 points in the loss against Florida on Saturday. On Tuesday, he recorded new career records in assists and rebounds.
The Texas native said after the game that it was fun to be out there with his teammates and that he’s not too worried about individual stats or records. Wheeler really cares for what the team does as a whole.
“At the end of the day, obviously basketball’s a business, but it’s a basketball game,” Wheeler said. “Games are meant to be fun. They’re meant to enjoy. You won’t be playing for all your life, so you want to enjoy it while you can.”
Although, Wheeler was proud of the fact that he was able to rack up that many boards.
“It’s a great feeling, but it’s an even better feeling for it to come out of a win,” Wheeler said. “The biggest thing was the rebounding because Coach Crean, my dad, and some of my other AAU coaches have been telling me that guard-rebounding is a big thing, especially in the league.”
Wheeler added that he can always depend on guys like Andrew Garcia and Toumani Camara for help on the glass.
“That’s something we’ve been emphasizing, so I’m trying to help in there and get as many rebounds as I can,” Wheeler said. “With the rebounds, that makes our break faster because that’s one less pass and one less second that we’re wasting if we’re already in our lanes and in our rhythm. Guys also made shots; guys made shots today, and that’s always a good thing for a win—a confidence-boosting win against a good team. It was a good day.”
Wheeler’s tenth assist came on a fastbreak in the second half where he found freshman K.D. Johnson on an alley-oop. Johnson overcorrected but still found a way to lay the ball in. It was a very unique way to pick up an assist and score for both players. After the lob pass, the limited crowd in Stegeman Coliseum rose to their feet and celebrated as Wheelers’ teammates did as well.
Crean said he didn’t even realize it happened until after the game.
“I had no idea on the triple-double until the end of the game when John Bateman told me,” Crean said. “I really don’t look at the stats during the game. Probably sometimes I should, but I had no idea. It’s phenomenal, and it’s incredible when you think about how many years they’ve played basketball here—116 years, and it’s the first time it’s happened.”
Crean said that Wheeler really had a quadruple-double because he had 10 deflections, which is really important to the third-year head coach.
“We’ve got a lot of high-level energy and effort basketball out of these guys, and they established early on that they were going to play with toughness,” Crean said. “I said to them today, ‘That the team that established the toughness was going to be the team that got the running game going best,’ because it’s hard to get your running game going consistently if you’re taking the ball out of the net. So many times, our guys got the rebound, we got out ahead, and we didn’t have too many live-ball turnovers in the first half, which made a huge difference to us.”
Georgia improves to 14-9 overall and 7-9 in league play. The Bulldogs will take on South Carolina at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 27. South Carolina upended Georgia earlier this season 83-59, but after Tuesday’s win over LSU, the Bulldogs are now 3-1 in revenge games this season.
Here is the video from Wheeler’s post-game presser: