Two reasons this game was lost: An 11-0 start to the second half by Tennessee that turned a one-point halftime lead to a formidable double-digit one…and Georgia’s .288 (17-59 from the floor) shooting percentage for the game. Neutralize that eleven-point run and knock down some shots…things might’ve worked out differently. As it turned out, though, the Lady Vols (now 16-5 overall, 7-1 in SEC play) defeated our Lady Bulldogs (16-6 overall, 5-4 SEC) going away and now Georgia must find away to pick up the pieces and halt their first losing streak of the season. As you might expect after such an anemic offensive performance, only two Lady Dawgs put up double-digit points against Tennessee…Meredith with 13 points before fouling out and Hassell would up scoring eleven. It all went down before a sellout crowd in excess of 10,000. And the atmosphere during the nip-and-tuck first half was March Madness-quality. But the Lady Vols will make you pay if you don’t execute and it seems like every Georgia miss in the second half turned into points for Tennessee on the other end. In his post-game radio show, Coach Landers said he told the team that or the most part they executed well enough…they just missed too many open looks. And we’ll give Andy (in a direct quote taken from the same show) the last word: “You wanna win? You gotta score.”

But don’t push that panic button just yet though, Fastbreakers. Losing two straight is, of course, no fun. But the Lady Bulldogs are going to catch a break in their schedule the rest of the way this season. Again…and as always…nothing, NOTHING is easy or given in this league…but Georgia’s going to be facing a lot of struggling SEC teams from here on out. And four of those games, including what looks to be the toughest one…a rematch with Vandy, will be contested within the friendly confines of Stegeman Coliseum. The opportunity is still well within reach for the Lady Dawgs to finish among the top-four SEC teams and grab a coveted first-round “bye” at the SEC Tournament. The home stretch starts next Thursday when Mississippi State comes to town. We’ll have a Georgia/Mississippi State preview posted right here sometime during the day on Wednesday.

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

Or maybe you call it tomorrow evening. Whichever. But Pat Summitt and the Tennessee Lady Vols are going to be here tomorrow and that means there’s only one acceptable place for you to be at 5:00 PM…Stegeman Coliseum. And wear your red-and-black Sunday-go-to-meeting clothes because ESPN2 will be in the house and you just might end up on national television. I wrote a few weeks ago about how hard it is to come up with something to write about Georgia (16-5 overall, 5-3 in SEC play) and Tennessee (15-5 overall, 6-1 in the SEC) hooking it up on the court. It’s even harder for a second game within a month. So I’m not even going to try. All you Fastbreakers know what the deal is here and what’s at stake. Show up in prodigious numbers, ready to holler. Georgia and Tennessee. Tomorrow afternoon (5:00 PM) at the Coliseum. See you there!

TV: ESPN2 (check your local cable/satellite listings for channel). Radio: Georgia Bulldog Radio Network affiliates (again, check local listings). We’ll have a Georgia/Tennessee game recap, web links, and exclusive photos posted right here sometime late tomorrow night.

Click here for the official Georgia/Tennessee game notes.

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

Click here to see the complete Lady Vol roster.

And, most importantly, click this here to learn more about “We Back Pat” and how you can help fund Alzheimer’s-related programs and research.

Eventually, Vanderbilt’s going to need a new arena. Whenever they finally decide to build a new home for the Commodores, they won’t have to look far for a volunteer to trigger the demolition of Memorial Gym. I’m sure Andy would be happy to push that plunger. Let’s go to the official game recap, courtesy of Georgiadogs.com:

Christina Foggie poured in a career-high 34 points to lead Vanderbilt to a 68-48 upset of No. 17 Georgia at Memorial Gymnasium on Thursday night.

Anne Marie Armstrong and Meredith Mitchell led Georgia (16-5, 5-3 SEC) with 15 and 12 points, respectively. Tiffany Clarke added 13 points for Vanderbilt (15-5, 3-5 SEC).

“A lot of things we talked about from a plan standpoint we didn’t do,” Andy Landers said. “Vanderbilt does some things defensively very well. But they also have some weaknesses, and we didn’t do a good job of exploiting those things. Our energy on the defensive end for the first four or five minutes was pretty good, but when we didn’t score we let that affect our effort on defense.”

After trailing by five points at halftime, the Lady Bulldogs pulled within two and had possession twice in the second stanza – lastly at 39-37 – but failed to convert.

“I thought our offensive decision making at that time led to our downfall,” Landers said.

A three-point play by Foggie ignited a 10-2 surge that put Vanderbilt in command at 49-39.

The Lady Bulldogs opened the game solidly. Armstrong and Mitchell combined to score all of Georgia’s first 14 points as the Lady Bulldogs opened opened up a 14-8 lead with 12:28 remaining in the first half. Vanderbilt counted with a 10-0 run over the next 3:24 to go up 18-8 at the 8:15 mark.

Georgia knotted the score at 18-18 and the teams were tied 26-26 with 2:33 left before the Commodores scored the final five points of the period to build a 31-26 lead at the intermission.
Vanderbilt shot 66.7 percent from the field, including 9-of-20 from three-point range, and outrebounded the Lady Bulldogs 19-8 in the second half.

“Give credit to Vanderbilt, the three-ball is something that they’re very, very good at and they knocked them down,” Landers said. “Entering the game, I hoped to win the rebounding battle but we were very lackluster in that area.”

The Lady Bulldogs return to action on Sunday when they host No. 7 Tennessee in their first weekend home date since Jan. 1. That game will tip at 5:00 PM and will be televised nationally on ESPN2. The first 500 UGA students will receive “Beat Tennessee” t-shirts, pizza and drinks.

We’ll have a preview of the Tennessee game posted here sometime on Saturday.

You just read the official recap…but click here for a link to the stats and box score.

Up one week and down the next…that’s how it went for our Lady Bulldogs in these latest national polls released a couple of days ago. Actually, Georgia wasn’t punished too badly for losing a close one to a top-ten team while being decimated by injuries. The Lady Dawgs fell two spots (to 17th) in the AP media poll and only one (to 15th) in the ESPN/USA Today coaches polls. I guarantee you’d see a big upward leap for our ladies if they can find a way to pull off back-to-back wins over Vanderbilt and Tennessee this week. No changes in the top five as Baylor reigns for another week as your unanimous number-one team in all the land. I’ll call it now…they’re not losing until March. If then.

Here’s a look at the top five in both national polls and Georgia’s ranking:

AP

1. Baylor

2. Notre Dame

3. Connecticut

4. Stanford

5. Duke

17. GEORGIA

ESPN/USA TODAY

1. Baylor

2. Notre Dame

3. Connecticut

4. Stanford

5. Duke

15. GEORGIA

Click here to see the entire top-25 in both major polls.

You can’t look past anybody in this league. Yes, the Lady Bulldogs have a big game on national television this Sunday…but the road to that game goes straight through Vandy, one of the few SEC stops where the Lady Dawgs have lost more often than they’ve won. That’s right, Vanderbilt (14-5 overall, 2-4 in SEC play) leads this series 11-9 in games played at Memorial Gym in Nashville. Georgia (16-4 overall, 5-2 in the SEC) heads into the second half of the conference schedule with a tenuous grip on a potential SEC Tournament first-round “bye.” Simply put, to hang on to that highly desired top-four-in-the-league spot, they’ve got to keep winning. The league’s heavy hitters are going to start facing off soon and the conference standings will be jumbled every weekend. To stay above that fray, the Lady Dawgs need to take care of their own business. And tomorrow night in Nashville, that business is about to pick up.

Georgia and Vandy take to the court tomorrow night in The Music City at 9:00 PM (Eastern). CSS cable subscribers can watch the game live on the tube…everyone else has the option of checking it out online at ESPN3.com. (ESPN3 is really a terrific service…do consider giving it at try if you haven’t already.) As always, J.D. will be at courtside calling all the action for you local Georgia Bulldog Radio Network affiliate station. We’ll have a Georgia/Vandy game recap and web links posted right here sometime late…seriously late since it’s a 9:00 PM start…tomorrow night.

Click here for the official Georgia/Vanderbilt game notes.

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

Click here to see the complete commodore roster.

Blowout. And the announcers on CSS really could’ve dialed it back about Georgia’s second-half performance. When you’re winning by a million points at halftime and your rotation is thin as onion skin thanks to injuries, you can mail it in the rest of the way and get your “W.” It’s okay. Let’s go to the official game recap, courtesy of Georgiadogs.com:

No. 15 Georgia raced to a 30-2 lead and never looked back en route to a 61-47 victory over Ole Miss here on Sunday afternoon.

“It would hard to imagine us playing much better out of the gate than we did today,” Andy Landers said. “They moved. They passed. They cut. They caught. They shot. They defended. They crashed the boards and rebounded. You really couldn’t ask for your basketball team to play any better than we did in the first half.”

Three Lady Bulldogs posted double-doubles – and career-best rebound tallies. Anne Marie Armstrong scored 15 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, Khaalidah Miller chipped in 13 points and 11 boards and Meredith Mitchell contributed 10 points and 14 rebounds for Georgia (16-4, 5-2 SEC).
Jasmine Hassell added 11 points, and Erika Ford posted nine points and seven boards in 24 minutes of action.

Tia Faleru led Ole Miss (12-8, 2-5 SEC) with 13 points and 10 rebounds.
Five different Lady Bulldogs scored on the first five possessions as Georgia opened up an 11-2 lead just 3:37 into the game. Armstrong opened the scoring with a short jumper, followed by additional jumpers from Hassell and Mitchell, a three from Miller and a jumper by Ford.

Georgia eventually scored on its first eight trips to the offensive end and expanded the lead to 18-2 during that run.

The score bulged to 30-2 before Ole Miss finally notched its second field goal on a stickback by Nikki Byrd with 6:32 remaining. The teams matched buckets for the remainder of the period before the Lady Bulldogs finished the half by matching their largest lead at 43-15 on an Armstrong layup off a nifty assist from Mitchell.

Georgia scored a season-low 18 second-half points after the game’s outcome was all but decided.

The Lady Bulldogs again played without Jasmine James and Krista Donald, who are nursing knee injuries.

“The thing you don’t have to worry about with this team and the position we’re in with injuries and depth is that they are not going to pace themselves,” Landers said. “They’re not going to worry about how they’re going to feel late in the game. They really go out there and pour it all down the funnel from the opening tip. The result of that is that we’ve been able to jump people and get very good early leads. We may lose a little of that as the game goes on but we still play hard and we defend well.”

Georgia travels to Nashville. to take on Vanderbilt on Thursday at 9:00 PM ET. The game will be televised regionally on CSS.

The Lady Bulldogs will be road warriors once again next Thursday night as they travel to Nashville and take on Vandy. Nashville is right up there with Starkville when it comes to places where things have a way of sometimes not going quite right for Georgia…so it sure would be nice to get some of our injured kids back for this one. We’ll have a Georgia/Vanderbilt preview posted right here sometime Tuesday night.

You just read the official recap…but click here for a link to the stats and box score.

Sorry for the late update. It’s family birthday season here at your humble Fastbreak Club Web Dude’s house. Three birthday parties in two days. So we’ll be keeping it brief(ish) tonight…because we’re burning some serious midnight oil here.

We all know that nothing is easy when it comes to SEC play. Ole Miss (tomorrow’s opponent for our Lady Bulldogs) isn’t going to just roll over and let Georgia take out some frustration on them over a tough loss to Kentucky a couple of nights ago. So you have to be able to bounce back. Luckily, our Lady Dawgs (15-4 overall, 4-2 in the SEC) have shown some serious resilience this season. They’ve successfully bounced back from every “L” so far with a “W.” They’ll be facing a 12-7 Ole Miss team (2-4 in league play) that has won 8 of those 12 games at home. Much like this past Thursday against Kentucky, we probably won’t know who’ll be available to actually play until just before the opening tip. Hopefully Krista will be back in the rotation tomorrow. She’s a local product, hailing from Lake, Mississippi…about 3-and-a-half hours down the road from Oxford. So you know she’d love to get out there and put on a show for her family and friends. If the Lady Bulldogs get the same kind of balanced scoring effort from the starting five as they did against Kentucky, stay out of foul trouble, and knock down their free throws, they’ve got an excellent shot at righting the ship tomorrow and coming home with a win.

Georgia and Ole Miss will tip-off at 3:00 PM (Eastern) tomorrow afternoon at Tad Smith Coliseum in Oxford. CSS will carry the game live for their cable subscribers and non-CSS’ers can watch online at ESPN3.com. You can also listen to the Lady Dawgs and Rebs on your local Georgia Bulldog Radio Network affiliate station. We’ll have a Georgia/Ole Miss recap and web links posted right here sometime tomorrow night.

Click here for the official Georgia/Ole Miss game notes.

Here’s a link to the Ole Miss women’s basketball page.

Click here to see the complete Rebel roster.

This one was tough to take. A five-point loss to Kentucky tonight at the Coliseum. With J.J. and Krista out, Meredith ailing from an ankle sprain, and Anne Marie battling early foul trouble that severely hindered her usual aggressiveness, the Lady Bulldogs still nearly knocked off the number-six team in all the land. Georgia (now 15-4 overall and 4-2 in SEC play) nursed a single-digit lead over the ‘Cats (17-2, 6-0 in the SEC) for over 30 minutes of game time…but the shots stopped dropping in the last ten minutes, turnovers came at inopportune times, and there were some questionable calls and non-calls that didn’t go Georgia’s way. All due credit to Coach Matthew Mitchell and Kentucky. It’s tough to win on the road in this league. (Though it’s considerably easier when your floor rotation is eight-or-nine deep.) You just sure would’ve liked to have seen how this one would’ve gone down with J.J. running the point and Krista helping to crash the boards.

One bright spot for the Lady Bulldogs tonight was the offensive performance by Erika Ford. We said on this very site that it was only a matter of time until Erika drops 20 on some SEC opponent. Well…tonight was almost the night as Erika led the Lady Dawgs with 17 points, repeatedly slashing to the basket like Tweety Nolan back in the day. In fact, every Georgia starter scored in double figures versus the ‘Cats tonight. In addition to Erika’s 17 points, Jazz scored 13, Khaalidah added 12, and both Anne Marie and Meredith finished with 11 points.

Next up for the Lady Bulldogs, a weekend trip to Oxford for a Sunday afternoon (3:00 PM, Eastern) game versus Ole Miss. We’ll have a Georgia/Ole Miss preview posted right here sometime during the day on Saturday. In the meantime, keep thinking those healing thoughts for our walking wounded…because this Georgia team can rumble with anybody at full strength.

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

Maryland’s loss to Miami (FL) last week opened the door for Duke to crash the top-five party in the latest AP and ESPN/USA Today national rankings. Baylor unanimously maintained their tight Kung-Fu grip at the top of the charts while Notre Dame, Connecticut, and Stanford all held serve at their respective positions. The Lady Bulldogs are on the move upward again…rising four spots in the AP poll and two places in the ESPN/USA Today rankings. Georgia’s next opponent, Kentucky, rocketed up to number six in both polls on the heels of their big win over Tennessee last week. So you can see what a big deal tomorrow night’s game at the Coliseum is shaping up to be. It’s a game with big-time SEC stakes on the line and national ramifications.

Here’s a look at the top five in both national polls and Georgia’s ranking:

AP

1. Baylor

2. Notre Dame

3. Connecticut

4. Stanford

5. Duke

15. GEORGIA

ESPN/USA TODAY

1. Baylor

2. Notre Dame

3. Connecticut

4. Stanford

5. Duke

14. GEORGIA

Click here to see the entire top-25 in both major polls.

Kentucky (16-2 overall, a perfect 4-0 in SEC play) rolls into town tomorrow night and they’re bringing the SEC Player of the Week with them. ‘Cat guard A’dia Mathies won this week’s SEC honors on the strength of an eye-popping 34-point performance in Kentucky’s big win over Tennessee last Thursday night. Georgia (15-3 overall, 3-1 in the SEC) hasn’t been all that impressed with Kentucky’s recent rise as The Next Big Thing in SEC women’s basketball, taking five wins in the last six games between the Lady Dawgs and ‘Cats. There’s still no official word about the condition of J.J.’s knee and/or her status for tomorrow night’s game. There’s a little gamesmanship involved here…even if the Lady Bulldog coaching staff knows full well J.J. won’t be playing, they still want the Kentucky coaches to use valuable prep time game-planning for her. We probably won’t know anything about J.J.’s readiness until the Lady Bulldogs take the court. And the Stegeman Coliseum court has been quite the home-floor advantage in this series as Georgia owns a 16-3 winning mark over the ‘Cats in Athens…including last season’s 18-point smackdown. Dawgs and ‘Cats…rivalries don’t come much more naturally than that. See you there!

The Lady Dawgs and will attempt to chase down the Wildcats tomorrow night (7:00 PM) at Stegeman Coliseum. No TV for tomorrow night’s showdown of nationally ranked programs (which is kind of ridiculous)…but you can always catch all the action live on your local Georgia Bulldog Radio Network affiliate station. But do everything you can to get out to the Coliseum for this one. Georgia and Kentucky are going to put on a show you don’t want to miss. We’ll have a game recap, web links, and exclusive Georgia/Kentucky photos posted right here sometime late tomorrow night.

Click here for the official Georgia/Kentucky game notes.

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

Click here to see the complete Wildcat roster.