A lot can change in a few weeks.

On Jan. 13, Georgia basketball was riding high, coming off two straight victories over top 25 opponents in Kentucky and Oklahoma and ranking in the AP poll for the first time since 2011. The Bulldogs looked for real, and poised for their first NCAA tournament berth since 2015.

Since then, it’s gone downhill a bit.

Yes, the Bulldogs defended their home court on Tuesday night with a 71-60 win over the lowly South Carolina Gamecocks, who now sit at 0-8 in SEC play. But the win came after a four game losing streak, where Georgia played SEC teams who actually did have a conference win. The Bulldogs lost a heartbreaker at home to Auburn, put up a dud against Tennessee, blew a 15-point lead to Arkansas and got flat-out humiliated by 30 points at Florida.

That skid has taken the Bulldogs from the brink to the bubble. ESPN’s latest bracketology, which was released before Georgia beat South Carolina, has Georgia as one of the final four teams to make the tournament without needing to first win a play-in game. Not ideal for a team that was ranked just earlier this month.

Turnovers have been a killer for the Bulldogs, with the team averaging 14.8 giveaways per game in the last five matchups. The team has struggled against the full-court press and has a bad habit of untimely turnovers in critical situations. Free throws have also been an issue at times. After Georgia enjoyed a combined 75-28 free throw attempt advantage in its wins over Kentucky and Oklahoma, the Bulldogs shot just 45% from the line in their two-point loss to Auburn.

To be completely fair to Georgia, it is playing in the toughest conference in college basketball. The SEC has 10 teams ranked in the latest AP poll, with three in the top five.

“We don’t have a bad loss,” head coach Mike White said, referencing Georgia’s 2-6 record against Quad 1 opponents, which are teams ranked in the top 30 by the NCAA Evaluation Tool. “We’re not losing to Quad 3 teams or even Quad 2 teams.”

And there are reasons to believe Georgia can improve going forward. The Bulldogs shot 80% from the charity stripe against South Carolina, and looked sightly more comfortable in full court press situations than they did against Tennessee, Florida or Arkansas. And sure, a lot of that can be chalked up to the quality of the opponent, but it’s also clearly something the team has worked on.

Georgia can’t afford another losing skid like the one it just broke out of. White’s point about losing to Quad 1 teams instead of lesser opponents is a valid one, but the Bulldogs can only lose so many conference games before they start to look like a team that doesn’t belong in the tournament at all. The schedule doesn’t let up, either. Six of Georgia’s next seven opponents are ranked in the top 20, so the Bulldogs will certainly get a chance to prove themselves.

If Georgia can string together some more SEC wins and make a solid run in the conference tournament, it should have more than enough to make the big dance. But if the Bulldogs continue to get in their own way and drop games against conference opponents, it could very well be their undoing. Georgia could be staring its season in the face over these next few games. Only time will tell.