Why Bulldogs center Somto Cyril is critical to UGA’s plans vs. Saint Louis

He loves driving-related video games, to the point that he has a racing cockpit setup at his home. Forza Horizon is a favorite.

Lastly, perhaps more than any Bulldog, Cyril will be essential to Georgia’s endeavor to defeat Saint Louis in its NCAA Tournament first-round game at Buffalo’s KeyBank Center Thursday night.

Here’s why: The most-feared Billikens player is center Robbie Avila, the Atlantic 10 player of the year. Avila leads Division I centers in assists and 3-pointers per game (4.1 and 1.9, respectively).

“I think what really separates him as a 6′10″, 240 (pound player) is his ability to pass the basketball,” UGA coach Mike White said. “It makes everybody around him better. They’ve got other good passers too, but I don’t think we’ve faced a ‘5’ that passes it like this this season.”

Avila’s game and melanin deficiency, along with his rec specs, have fathered a number of excellent nicknames: Cream Abdul-Jabbar, Larry Nerd, SLU Alcindor and Milk Chamberlain among them.

Stop Avila, logic would suggest, and the eighth-seeded Bulldogs can thwart ninth-seeded Saint Louis, notch their first NCAA win since 2002 and move on to a likely matchup with No. 1 seed Michigan.

Cyril, the Bulldogs’ 6-foot-11 center from Nigeria, figures to have that assignment.

“I have respect for him,” Cyril said in the Bulldogs’ locker room before practice. “I’m just ready to play.”

It’s the classic March Madness matchup — the technically sound mid-major star trying to be his team’s hub against an athletic power-conference brute.

Credit: Ken Sugiura

Credit: Ken Sugiura

Throw in this wrinkle — Cyril has had problems avoiding foul trouble, which has limited his minutes. He has finished a game with four fouls or fouled out 13 times in the Bulldogs’ 32 games. That doesn’t count the two games that he was ejected from for throwing elbows that drew flagrant-2 fouls, including Georgia’s SEC Tournament upset loss to Ole Miss.

This is a little bit of statistical cherry picking, but Cyril had six games against SEC competition in which he played 21 minutes or fewer. Georgia was 1-5 in those games.

That is a particularly concerning weakness against Avila.

For, as White said, “He’s got an innate ability to draw fouls.”

It’s not difficult to see how this could unravel. Avila gets Cyril in foul trouble; the Bulldogs lose their rim protector, leading rebounder, interior force and the player tasked with neutralizing the Billikens’ best player and now Georgia’s prospects become much more tenuous. Smelling a late-night upset, the whole of the arena throws its support behind the Billikens.

Aiyee!

It’s not for nothing that White called Cyril’s ability to defend Avila without fouling a “huge” priority of the game plan.

“(Avila) understands if you’re not legal (in your positioning), he’s going to draw contact,” White said. “So, we’ve got to be legal. We can’t rest mentally. We’ve got to be engaged and be urgent when he’s got the basketball.”

Cyril is up to it.

“It’s just keeping my head in the right place and doing the right thing,” he said. “Focus on the game plan and doing what helped us all the way from nonconference to the regular season and being here.”

Know this about Cyril — he could stand to harness his physicality, but he’s not a dirty player.

“Something about me — I would never purposely try to get someone hurt,” he said.

Cyril pointed out that, in the SEC Tournament game against Ole Miss, for instance, the player he elbowed in the head — guard Travis Perry — was much shorter and was pushing him in the back.

“I tried to get his hands off,” Cyril said. “Unfortunately, I caught his face. It wasn’t on purpose. I wouldn’t do that to anybody on purpose.”

However unintentional, it still happened and limited him to 14 minutes in what turned out to be a four-point loss. Georgia doesn’t need that or anything else that limits his playing time.

“As long as I can go, as long as I can be out there, I want to help my team,” Cyril said.

All Bulldogs would raise a hand in agreement, both left and right.

You can now get my column sent straight to your inbox. Sign up for my newsletter here.