Georgia women’s basketball coach Andy Landers watched his team during the morning’s shoot-around, turned and told his assistants, “We are in really a good place.”
Were they ever.
The Lady Bulldogs routed LSU 71-53 on Friday in the quarterfinals of the SEC women’s basketball tournament at Gwinnett Arena. Georgia (25-5), the third seed, will play Kentucky (26-4), the second seed, in Saturday’s 6 p.m. semifinal. Georgia hasn’t made it to the SEC championship game since 2004. Tennessee will play Texas A&M at 4 p.m. in Saturday’s first semifinal.
Jasmine Hassell led the Lady Bulldogs with 19 points on 9-of-12 shooting. Tiaria Griffin added 15 points for the Lady Bulldogs, who had five players score at least 10 points.
The performance was a step in Landers’ grand plan.
To eliminate distractions such as cell phones, friends and even autograph-seekers, Landers chose to sequester his team away from the Arena. He told them that they wouldn’t even see their parents.
They watched Thursday’s games together at the hotel with nothing “but water bottles and focus,” he said. Landers said he could hear his players picking out things that LSU was doing in its win against Auburn that set up Friday’s game.
They went out and took advantage on Friday.
The Lady Bulldogs started with 3-pointers from Griffin and Shacobia Barbee and then began finding Hassell inside for seven consecutive points that helped to open a 14-point lead.
LSU bounced back and cut Georgia’s lead to eight with six consecutive points before the Lady Bulldogs pushed it back to 10 at the half.
Georgia increased its lead in the second half to 15 points behind more Hassell. LSU got as close as 11 with 12:50 left but didn’t have the endurance after Thursday’s tough game against Auburn to threaten the Lady Bulldogs.
Georgia’s zone defense made it even harder on LSU’s tired legs, forcing the Tigers to keep trying to shoot long jumpers that they couldn’t make. LSU shot 29 percent in the game, including missing 19 of its 26 3-pointers.
Tennessee, the top seed, beat Florida 82-73 in the day’s first game. Meighan Simmons, the SEC’s leading scorer, paced the Volunteers with 20 points, 2.3 more than her season average. Five more players scored at least 10 points for Tennessee (24-6).
Texas A&M knocked off South Carolina 61-52 in Friday’s other early quarterfinal. Kristi Bellock paced the Aggies (22-9) with 17 points and five rebounds. Ashley Bruner led the Gamecocks with 19 points. South Carolina (24-7) was undone by 18 turnovers and missing eight of its 10 3-point attempts.
Later in the day, Kentucky (26-4), the second seed, easily defeated Vanderbilt 76-65 as all four of the higher seeds won on Friday. The Bulldogs defeated the Wildcats 75-71 in their only previous meeting this year.
“It’s survive and advance,” Tennessee coach Holly Warlick said.
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