Georgia has a storied history in the SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament. Only Tennessee (16) and Vanderbilt (6) have won more titles than the Lady Dogs (4). But they haven’t done all that well lately.
Georgia’s last tournament championship came in 2001. The current group of Lady Dogs has never reached the finals and played in the semis only once. They aim to improve on that this year.
“I’m not proud of the fact we’ve been an early out,” said Georgia coach Andy Landers, the second-winningest active coach in the game with 901 career victories. “But I’m not going to dwell on it. That was then; this is now. I think we’ve got a better basketball team, but I think the competition is even greater. You’ve just got to tee it up and play.”
No. 12 Georgia (24-5, 12-4) enters this year’s event at the Gwinnett Arena as the tournament’s No. 3 seed. The Lady Dogs will play the winner of Thursday’s game between Auburn and LSU on Friday night at 8:30 p.m. They split with those teams in the regular season, losing on the road at LSU.
If ever there was a year the title was there for the taking it’s this year. Only the No. 9-ranked Lady Vols (23-6) rank ahead of Georgia and no SEC team has exhibited dominating traits. The top four teams in the draw all have at least one loss to one of the others.
“That’s the point this year,” Landers said. “Eight or nine of these teams can beat any team on any night. The piece that’s different is the mentality and the maturity and the focus that this team has had throughout the season. That makes me believe we have the ability to focus on a three-day tournament better than we’ve done in the past.”
As the No. 3 seed, Georgia was one of four teams to receive a double-bye into the quarterfinal round of the tournament. So having to win three games in three days in their back yard does not seem an overwhelming task.
“We’ve been playing well the last couple of weeks and we haven’t played our best basketball yet, so we know it’s coming,” said Georgia forward Jasmine Hassell, who is averaging 15.4 points and 9.9 rebounds over the past seven games, with four double-doubles. “I still think we have a good 40 minutes in us and we haven’t peaked. Hopefully we’ll peak right on time because we have some important games to win.”
It’s not like Georgia is coming in desperate. It doesn’t need to go deep to secure an NCAA tournament berth, though reaching the finals couldn’t hurt seeding.
But to go in with the mindset that they’re playing for anything other than a title would be a mistake, the Bulldogs say.
“All I can think about is an SEC championship right now,” said senior guard Jasmine James, a second-team All-SEC selection this season. “To win the SEC championship would be a great way to start postseason play. We have to be focused on that. That has to be our first goal. After that we’ll worry about the NCAA tournament.”
Georgia was in a similar position last year as it also entered as a No. 3 seed. The Lady Dogs lost to South Carolina 59-55 in Nashville. They followed two weeks later with a first-round bounce by Marist in the NCAA tournament.
“We’re selling this as winning a conference championship, which is something we need to do,” Landers said. “I’m not tying it to the NCAA in any way, shape, fashion or form. We have a chance in three days to win a conference championship. If we play very, very well we’re capable of doing that. That’s what we’re buying into and that’s what we need to go over there and do.”
Hassell and James were freshmen the last time the SEC Tournament was played in Duluth. The Bulldogs beat Alabama in the first round that season before getting ousted by Mississippi State in the quarterfinals 67-52.
Landers plans to do a few things differently this time. Namely, they’ll take an all-business approach.
“We’re not going to the arena except to play,” he said. “We’re not hanging out after a game; we’re not going out and watching somebody else play. Dressing room, arena, dressing room and back to the house.”
And with any luck, they'll head back to Athens with their first championship in 12 years.
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