Nashville — Georgia coach Andy Landers might not have figured his team out, but Kentucky has.

For the second time this season Kentucky pushed all the right buttons, exploited all the right angles and beat Georgia. This time it was a 57-50 Kentucky victory at the Sommet Center on Friday night. And this time it bounced No. 5 Georgia from the SEC tournament. It is the first time in five years Georgia did not reach the semifinals.

"We knew we wanted to come out and make a statement because of what they did to us in Athens, and we didn't do that," sophomore Ashley Houts said. "We have got to grow as a team and work at it and get better."

The fourth-seeded Wildcats (15-14) will take on top-seed LSU in the semifinals at 6:30 p.m. today. Georgia will head home and wait for its next seeding. Undoubtedly it will be the lowest NCAA tournament seed Georgia has had in a few years.

The Lady Bulldogs (22-9), once 13-0, are 9-9 in their past 18 games. They had no quality wins in that stretch but several questionable losses such as at Auburn and at home against Kentucky and Vanderbilt. Given that and how they bowed out of the SEC tournament early, it is reasonable to guess they will be around a No. 7 seed.

Seeds of apathy seem to be the more pressing matter among this team. Georgia coach Andy Landers' mantra — "Everybody loves to play basketball. Not everybody loves to compete." — has not taken root with this group.

That became clear during back-to-back games here. Georgia's defense allowed Alabama and Kentucky to play to their strengths.

"Without going into any detail, and I won't go into a lot, I have pushed a lot of buttons and tried a lot of different things — some, that looking back on it I might have wished that I hadn't tried — to get this basketball team to respect and appreciate the right to play Georgia basketball," Landers said. "Before the season we talked about getting a swagger back and work ethic that we have gotten away from, and we have gotten that yet and I thought it showed. They pushed us around."

It was 6-foot-6 Sarah Elliott doing the pushing. She planted herself down low and was involved in every aspect of the game near the basket. She finished with 16 points and nine rebounds, five of which were on offense. Georgia also allowed her good looks deep into the shot clock.

That combination allowed Kentucky to build a 10-point halftime lead. Georgia, working with little rest from the previous night, made a run, closed the gap once but quickly started to backpedal.

Tasha Humphrey, Georgia's leading scorer this season, had six points. As a team Georgia shot 35 percent. A huge factor in that low percentage was Angel Robinson not establishing herself early when Humphrey was being double-teamed.

"Angel was less than effective in the first half," Landers said. "She could have maybe established something there that might have change the way that the game was played."