University of Georgia Athletics
Lady Bulldogs Host Florida Gators Thursday Night
January 26, 2005 | Women's Basketball
Jan. 26, 2005
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| No. | Name | PPG | RPG | No. | Name | PPG | RPG | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 31 | Alexis Kendrick | 6.8 | 3.6 | G | 3 | Tishona Gregory | 6.8 | 2.9 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (5-7; Jr.; Inglewood, Calif.) | (5-5; Sr.; Romulus, Mich.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 33 | Katie Frye | 2.5 | 1.4 | G | 23 | Tamia Williams | 12.6 | 3.3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (6-0; Sr.; Jasper, Ga.) | (6-0; Sr.; West Palm Beach, Fla.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 21 | Cori Chambers | 13.5 | 4.1 | G | 45 | Tashia Morehead | 7.1 | 3.4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (5-9; Soph.; Elmsford, N.Y.) | (5-11; Sr.; Panama City Beach, Fla.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 50 | Rebecca Rowsey | 4.9 | 5.6 | F | 33 | Bernice Mosby | 14.2 | 9.0 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (6-3; Soph.; Henderson, Tenn.) | (6-1; Jr.; Brooksville, Fla.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 34 | Tasha Humphrey | 18.6 | 8.8 | F | 32 | Brittany Davis | 8.9 | 4.6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (6-3; Fr.; Gainesville, Ga.) | (6-2; Jr.; Gainesville, Fla.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Off The Bench | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 11 | Sherill Baker | 10.8 | 4.7 | G | 11 | Sarah Lowe | 4.8 | 3.7 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (5-8; Jr.; Stone Mountain, Ga.) | (5-7; Jr.; Wynnewood, Pa.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 14 | Janese Hardrick | 7.8 | 2.2 | G • F | 34 | Dalila Eshe | 4.8 | 3.6 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (5-6; Soph.; Powder Springs, Ga.) | (6-3; Jr.; Tallahassee, Fla.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 24 | Megan Darrah | 5.7 | 3.0 | G/F • F | 50 | Briana Phillips | 2.4 | 1.4 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (6-3; Fr.; Moreland, Ga.) | (6-2; Soph.; Bradenton, Fla.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| 13 | Jessica Pierce | 3.5 | 3.0 | F • G | 20 | Depree Bowden | 2.1 | 1.3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| (6-2; Sr.; Pensacola, Fla.) | (5-11; Fr.; Palmetto, Fla.) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Georgia hopes to build on momentum maintained in Starkville
Playing well at home has not been a problem for Georgia this season. The friendly confines of Stegeman Coliseum have proven to be just that as the Lady Bulldogs have rolled to a 10-1 home record. For many of those outings, a game in Athens allowed Georgia to get back on the right track following a loss away from home. Tonight, the Lady Bulldogs take the court facing a different challenge - maintaining momentum following an impressive road performance.
Georgia secured its first SEC road victory of the season last Sunday at Mississippi State, and Andy Landers would obviously like his team to keep heading in that positive direction.
"I hope it was a performance that sparks us from this point on," Landers said. "I thought it was very hard-fought game, a very competitive game and one in which we did a lot of good things. I thought we had a lot of different people step up at the end, which hopefully improves our confidence individually as well as a basketball team."
The Lady Dogs struggled mightily in their first two league road games, losing at top-ranked LSU and then being upset at Kentucky. During the same time span, Georgia posted home wins over Arkansas, Ole Miss and Auburn in three of its best showings of the year.
Prior to the trip to Starkville, Georgia had compiled an 21.0-point average margin of victory over the Lady Razorbacks, Lady Rebels and Lady Tigers, while losing by an average of 16.0 points in Baton Rouge and Lexington. Much of the same story could be written about the Lady Dogs' rebounding efforts in those outings - a positive 16.3 margin in Athens and a negative 9.5 mark on the road.
Hopefully, those massive statistical disparities came to an end with a victory over the league's other Lady Dogs. But Landers knows his team will need a similar effort against Florida, which won both regular-season matchups with Georgia last season.
"It's a very good Florida basketball team," Landers said. "I think our team remembers what happened to us a year ago in both games. Hopefully, it will be a great motivator for us to come out and play as well as we can play."
Keeping an eye on...
Entering the Florida game:
Andy Landers is...
- 38 wins shy of becoming the state's winningest college basketball coach
Alexis Kendrick is...
- 12 assists from No. 8 Coco Miller on UGA's career leaders list
Sherill Baker is...
- 38 steals from No. 5 Janet Harris on UGA's career leaders list
Landers looks to move up on all-time wins list
On Dec. 19, Andy Landers became just the fifth major college women's basketball coach to reach the 700-win plateau with the Lady Bulldogs' victory at Iona. Tonight, Landers attempts to equal the victory total of one of his friend and former conference foe, Sue Gunter, and possibly even tie Rutgers' C. Vivian Stringer.
Gunter retired last season with 708 wins at Middle Tennessee, Stephen F. Austin and LSU. Rutgers plays at Boston College tonight.
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Florida becomes most frequent foe...for a couple of days
If familiarity is a measuring stick, this evening's matchup between Georgia and Florida is a milestone contest. The Lady Bulldogs and Gators meet for the 45th time tonight, temporarily making the Florida the Lady Bulldogs' most met opponent all-time.
Georgia has faced Tennessee 45 times as well and those traditional national powers are set to take the court next Monday in Knoxville in a nationally televised matchup on espn2.
For the past decade, Georgia and Florida have met on a home-and-home basis during every regular-season as predetermined rivals by the SEC. That move has accomplished its goal: to help foster better rivalries among those conference schools. And it came at a seemingly perfect time for its intended purpose.
Georgia owned a 20-5 advantage in the all-time series with Florida at that point, a mark which becomes even more one-sided when considering that the Lady Dogs dropped their first three meetings ever in 1978 and 1979. After that trio of setbacks, Georgia reeled 19 straight wins before the Gators captured consecutive victories during 1994 and 1995.
The Lady Dogs bounced back to secure an 88-71 win in the 1995 SEC Tournament before the home-and-home arrangements began the following winter. Since then, Georgia is 14-5 versus Florida.
Next month in Gainesville, history will repeat itself when the Lady Bulldogs and Gators meet again and again equal Tennessee as Georgia's most frequent opponent. And in the not too distant future, Florida will surpass the Lady Vols for good as the rivalry continues to grow and develop even more.
Lady Bulldogs lead series with Gators
Georgia enters this evening's matchup with a 34-10 advantage in its all-times series with Florida, including a 17-3 mark in games played in Athens.
A year ago, the Gators swept both ends of the home-and-home series before the Lady Bulldogs earned revenge with a victory in the quarterfinals of the SEC Tournament.
Last season in Athens, Florida snapped Georgia's 23-game home winning streak, the second-longest string in the nation at the time, with an 83-73 upset. The Lady Dogs led 28-19 in the first half before a 9-0 Gator run tied the game. Florida took the lead for good on a Tashia Morehead three-pointer with 17:06 left in the game. Morehead finished with a game-high 22 points.
Florida earned 69-59 victory later in the season in Gainesville. The Gators led by three with 2:45 remaining when they converted on an unconventional three-point play. Bernice Mosby made the first of two free throws but missed the second. Vanessa Hayden scored on a putback to expand the lead to 61-55 and end the Lady Dogs' last real threat.
At the SEC Tournament in Nashville, Georgia rallied from a double-digit deficit in the first half to eventually tie the game at intermission. An 11-2 Georgia run gave the Lady Dogs a three-point lead with 4:11 left and Christi Thomas scored six straight points to help secure the victory.
Humphrey tabbed Player of the Week for historic third time
Tasha Humphrey was named the SEC Player of the Week by the conference office on Monday, a day after she scored 24 points and grabbed 12 rebounds in the Lady Bulldogs' win at Mississippi State.
Humphrey has now been honored as SEC Player of the Week three times in the 10 weeks the league has selected the award this season, becoming just the second freshman in league history to do so. Tennessee's Chamique Holdsclaw was tabbed as such three times during 1995-96.
"It's great to be honored individually but this is really more of a team accomplishment," Humphrey said. "I was put into position to do what I did because of my teammates. We had a lot of assists yesterday (18), and I was fortunate to be on the receiving end of many of those."
Humphrey posted her league-leading 10th double-double of the season against Mississippi State and her sixth double-double in as many SEC games played. No other player has more than two double-doubles in league action.
Humphrey connected on 10-of-11 shots from the field, hitting her first 10 attempts before missing with just under three minutes remaining in the contest. She scored 13 points and grabbed five rebounds during the first 6:17 of the game as Georgia built a 19-12 lead but then picked up her second foul with 11:54 left in the first half and sat the rest of the period. She played the final 8:37 of the game after picking up her fourth foul.
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Humphrey becomes just the seventh player to be named SEC Player of the Week three or more times in a single season since the league instituted the honor in 1985. Previously three-time recipients include Georgia's Katrina McClain in 1986-87; Vanderbilt's Wendy Scholtens, who was a four-time Player of the Week in 1989-90; LSU's Cornelia Gayden in 1994-95; Holdsclaw in 1995-96; Florida's DeLisha Milton in 1996-97; and Mississippi State's LaToya Thomas in 2001-02.
Trio join Lady Dogs' top-10s
Sherill Baker, Cori Chambers and Alexis Kendrick have placed themselves alongside the greatest names in UGA's career annals as each has joined one of more of the Lady Dogs' list of top-10 career statistical leaders lists.
Kendrick handed out eight assists in the season-opener against Furman to move into the No. 10 position among career leaders for dishes. She has since ascended to the No. 9 slot.
Baker earned a spot on Georgia's steals ledger with five thefts during the Lady Dogs' win over No. 2 Texas on Nov. 21 and is now in the No. 6 position.
Chambers, who has accounted for nearly 40 percent of the Lady Bulldogs three-pointers this season, joined the top-10 list of career threes during her five-trifecta outburst against Stetson on Jan. 10. She displaced the previous No. 10, Camille Murphy, who knocked down 81 shots from behind the arc from 1998-2002.
81 or more still the magic score
The 2004-05 Lady Bulldogs have added several more notches to perhaps the greatest indicator in all of college athletics - other than the most obvious of out-scoring the opponent. With a 97-42 victory over Stetson, Georgia improved to 5-0 in games this season when the Lady Dogs have scored more than 80 points.
The Lady Dogs improved their astronomical record under Andy Landers when the Lady Bulldogs have topped that mark. Semantically, that means 81 points or more, but "more than 80" rolls off the tongue better.
The Lady Dogs are now 356-5 when they've scored more than 80 points under Landers - an almost unfathomable winning percentage of 98.614958449.
Locker room, "G" remain off limits
Since Dec. 6, the Lady Bulldogs have been supplying their own practice clothes and Andy Landers has not allowed the team to use its 3,600-square-foot locker room facility.
"I don't think we're representing ourselves like a Georgia Basketball team right now," Landers said. "I think we take a lot of things for granted. I don't think they understand what the `G' on the uniform has represented for the last 26 years, getting up and down the floor with passion. It's just not acceptable."
Following a rather decisive victory over Ole Miss on Jan. 6, Landers said his team was headed in a much better direction than it was a month earlier.
"We're getting there," Landers said. "We haven't turned the corner in many ways. But in some ways we're inching forward and making progress. The thing about tonight's game was it was solid by everyone."
However, things took a turn for the worse in Georgia's next two SEC dates, road losses at LSU and Kentucky.
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