ATHENS – The SEC Women’s Basketball Tournament is set and the Georgia Bulldogs find themselves slap in the middle of the pack. As for the men’s tournament, there remains a week’s worth of work to do and much could change based on those results.
The Georgia women, in their first year under coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson, ended up with the No. 7 seed for this year’s tournament, which begins Wednesday in Greenville, S.C. That will pit the Lady Dogs (20-10, 9-7 SEC) against Auburn in the second round on Thursday at 6 p.m. Georgia defeated the Tigers (70-59) just four days ago in Athens.
The Lady Dogs dropped their final game of the season on Sunday, falling to No. 1-ranked and undefeated South Carolina 73-63 in Columbia. But that was a miniscule blemish on what has been a strong run at the end of the season. Before that, Georgia had won five of the previous six games.
“Their personality is now becoming my personality, which I love,” Coach Abe said in Columbia “They’ve got to be fighters and they’ve got to be tough.”
If Georgia gets by Auburn on Thursday, it will face No. 2 seed LSU on Friday at 6 p.m. The Bulldogs fell to the Tigers 82-77 on Feb. 2 in Baton Rouge.
The scenario is less rosy for the Georgia men. After getting overrun by Missouri in a 45-22 second half on Saturday, the Bulldogs (16-13, 6-10) dropped their third game in a row and fell into the No. 11 spot in SEC. If that stands, that puts Georgia in the dreaded first round on Wednesday night, previously known as the play-in games.
With regular-season contests remaining against Florida at home on Tuesday and South Carolina on the road Saturday, Georgia desperately wants to play its way out of that -- and can. The bottom three spots are set between Ole Miss (3-13 SEC), South Carolina (3-13) and LSU (2-14).
The Bulldogs are battling Mississippi State (7-9) and Florida (7-9) to get into the next tier. Georgia would hold the tiebreaker over State, which it beat 58-50 on Jan. 11 in Starkville. The Maroon Dogs have remaining games at home against South Carolina and on the road at Vandy.
As for the Gators, they’re going to be favored in their final two against Georgia and LSU, but they’re both on the road. Florida beat the Bulldogs 82-75 in Gainesville way back on Jan. 7. Georgia first-year coach Mike White, who led the Gators for seven years before coming to Athens last March, will obviously be emotionally invested Tuesday night.
The question is whether White’s players also will be. As demonstrated again in Saturday’s loss to Missouri, Georgia seems to have lost some intestinal fortitude or physical toughness – one of the two or both. The Bulldogs led the Tigers by eight points in the first half and were still up seven with 2:12 before halftime. But they were down 63-47 just 8½ in the second half on the short end of 29-6 run.
“It’s part of the process of building learning how to win consistently,” White said. “Every program goes through it. The more winning experience you have, the more you understand how important responding to adversity is. … Physical toughness is part of that, too.”
