Georgia basketball made the most of its only preseason exhibition game by beating a veteran Eastern Kentucky team, 99-82, on Monday night,

RJ Melendez, a 6-foot-7 transfer from Illinois, scored a team-high 21 points for the Bulldogs and pulled down nine rebounds.

“He can fill up the stat sheet, and I like the level of confidence he played with for a guy who hasn’t logged those type of minutes in his college career,” UGA coach Mike White said. “Good to see him take advantage, and who knows moving forward.”

Russell Tchewa, a 7-foot transfer from South Florida, recorded a double-double with 10 points and 10 rebounds for Georgia in this uptempo game at Stegeman Coliseum.

It was an Eastern Kentucky team that returned four starters off a unit that went 23-14 last season.

White made it clear this Georgia team — which features five transfers and five freshmen — won’t typically be approaching 100 points like they did against the pressing Colonels.

“Not in the SEC, (and) it would be hard to do that (next) Monday night,” said White, whose team opens the regular season against Oregon at 4:30 p.n. next Monday in Las Vegas.

“That being said, our tempo was pretty good, and I think this team is going to be a little bit better with continuity type stuff where we are free-flowing and hopefully playing a little bit better in the open floor.”

Georgia will need to get in its flow early, as the game with the Ducks is followed by UGA’s home opener at 7 p.m. on Nov. 10 against Wake Forest.