On Saturday, December 11, the Fastbreak Club was once again honored and privileged to assist the Lady Bulldogs in their annual bike build for Athens-area children in need. As has become a Club tradition, the afternoon tipped off with a potluck lunch before the team and the attending Fastbreakers got down to some serious work. There are five galleries of photos…so make sure you scroll down the page far enough to see them all. As always, if you’re a Fastbreaker working on a player scrapbook and there’s a photo here of your player that you’d like to use in your book, you are more than welcome to grab it. Just click on the picture and you’ll see a slightly larger sized version of it. Right-click on the larger picture to save it to your hard drive. If for whatever reason, you can’t get your picture to save…just drop a line here to m.holcomb@charter.net and I’ll be more than happy to e-mail you a .JPEG file of any photos you need.

Thanks again so much to everyone involved in Lady Bulldog basketball for allowing the Fastbreak Club to participate in this year’s bike build. Just a few years in and it’s already a holiday tradition and one of the Club’s most popular social events.

The Lady Bulldogs took a big hit in the national rankings this week after their loss to Georgia Tech. Georgia fell to 25th in the Associated Press media poll and they dropped completely off the board in the ESPN/USA Today poll of the nation’s coaches. Hopefully that dominating victory over Mercer and the long break for final exams will provide the Lady Dawgs with a jump-start heading into the last couple of weeks of non-conference play. The SEC is just around the corner, Fastbreakers. Here are the top five from this week’s polls and Georgia’s ranking:

AP

1. Connecticut

2. Baylor

3. Stanford

4. Xavier

5. Duke

25. GEORGIA

ESPN/USA TODAY

1. Connecticut

2. Stanford

3. Baylor

4. Duke

5. Xavier

(GEORGIA IS UNRANKED.)

Georgia – 92, Mercer – 45. This game played out pretty much as expected given the huge size and athleticism gulf between the two teams on the floor. Georgia stumbled coming out of the gate for the first couple of minutes…but when Lady Bulldog shots started dropping, they dropped in droves and the subsequent offensive explosion propelled the home team to a lopsided “W.” Everybody on the roster got significant minutes and lit up the scoreboard. Khaalida’s season-high 16 points led a quintet of Lady Bulldog scorers in double figures. Po’ and Meredith scored 13 points each, Tamika scored 11 and Anne Maried finished with ten points. Ronika had a tough 3-of-8 night for the floor…but made up for it with 11 rebounds, a season-high for the fabulous freshman from D.C.

The Lady Dawgs will now take a twelve day hiatus from game action for final exams. They won’t take the floor again until December 19th at the Coliseum versus High Point. But that doesn’t mean we won’t have fresh content on your official Fastbreak Club weblog until then. We’ll have the updated polls tomorrow and, as we get into the break, look for team background features, where to find good games that don’t involve the Lady Bulldogs on the tube, and maybe a surprise or two along the way. So check back in right here early and often…

Click here for the official Georgia/Mercer recap and a link to the stats and box score.

When the Mercer Bears come to town tomorrow night, they’ll be bringing a couple of old friends with them. The Bears are coached by former Lady Bulldog fan favorite Susie Gardner and she’s assisted by former Georgia manager/administrative assistant Amy Jones. Here’s hoping the Lady Dawgs make their bus ride back to Macon as enjoyable as Georgia’s was coming back from Atlanta yesterday. Nothing personal, ladies. Mercer is off to a 1-6 start this season. The Bears will be giving up a ton of height to the Lady Bulldogs as they list only one player on their roster at 6-feet-plus. They’re going to be running headlong into a Georgia team that will most likely be looking to take out a little frustration on whoever happens to be standing in their way. This game should be a good opportunity for the Lady Dawgs to press, trap, and deflect some passes. One-dollar admission coupons are in effect again tomorrow night (see link below), so come on out to the Coliseum and take advantage of this last opportunity to catch some live Lady Bulldog basketball before the long break for final exams.

Georgia and Mercer will gets things started at 7:00 PM tomorrow night at Stegeman Coliseum. We’ll have a game recap, web links, and exclusive Georgia/Mercer photos posted right here a couple of hours after the final buzzer.

Click here for the official Georgia/Mercer game notes.

Here’s a link to the Mercer women’s basketball page.

Click here to see the complete Bear roster.

Print your one-dollar admission coupon by clicking here.

Georgia Tech – 69, Georgia – 53. Well…that certainly made for kind of a long ride home, didn’t it? After a physical, back-and-forth, highly exciting first half that saw the Lady Bulldogs and Jackets going toe-to-toe and taking each other’s best punches, almost nothing went right for Georgia in the game’s final twenty minutes. After being outscored 34-22 in the second half, the Lady Dawgs were left to ponder a rare loss to their most…well, let’s just say strongly disliked…in-state rival. Jazz led all Georgia scorers with 13 points and Porsha just missed yet another double-double with 9 points and an impressive 15 rebounds. Overall, however, today’s game saw the return of the 30-something percent shooting bugaboo that plagued Georgia for so much of last season. The Lady Bulldogs shot only 33% versus Tech, with Anne Marie, J.J., Khaalida, Ronika, and Tamika combining to make only 9-of-37 shots from the field. That kind of cold shooting is tough to overcome on the road against a tough, athletic, and obviously very fired-up opponent. Today was simply Tech’s day.

The Lady Dawgs won’t have a lot of time to toss and turn over this one. They’ll be back on the court this Tuesday night as Mercer, another in-state rival, visits Stegeman Coliseum. We’ll have a Georgia/Mercer preview posted right here sometime during the day tomorrow (Monday).

Click here for the official Georgia/Georgia Tech recap and a link to the stats and box score.