University of Georgia Athletics
Phillips Leads Lady Bulldogs Past Alabama State
November 16, 2008 | Women's Basketball
The outing served the regular-season opener for both teams.
Phillips, Ashley Houts and Christy Marshall scored Georgia’s first 16 points of the game as the Lady Bulldogs opened up a 10-point lead less than five minutes in and never looked back. Georgia led by 20 or more points for the final 26:31 of the contest, by thirty or more from the 13:14 mark of the second half and by 40 or more for the last 7:06. The 50-point margin of victory was the Lady Bulldogs’ largest lead of the evening.
“The girls enjoy practice and they enjoy playing in each others’ company regardless of where we are,” head coach Andy Landers said. “The chemistry of this basketball team is very good. Not only do they enjoy playing together, but they enjoy playing hard. We’re not to the point of playing hard that we are going to get to, but they enjoy the point we are at. Whereas a year or two ago, they would not have been comfortable and not wanted a whole lot to do with it.”
Phillips’ previous best performances were 12 points, seven rebounds and three steals while at LSU.
Houts added 14 points, Danielle Taylor chipped in 12 points off the bench and Marshall scored 11 points and dished out a career-high six assists.
Erica Lumpkin paced Alabama State with 12 points, all in the first half when she was 4-of-5 from three-point range.
The Lady Bulldogs connected on 64.0 percent of their first-half shots before cooling in the second stanza. Still, Georgia shot 50.9 percent for the game.
Georgia will return to action on Thursday when the Lady Bulldogs face Oakland in the first of a two-game swing through the Detroit area. Georgia takes on Detroit Mercy on Sunday before returning home to take on North Carolina Central on Wednesday, November 26 at 7:00 p.m.
Post-Game Notes
Georgia is 27-9 (.75) all time in regular-season openers, including an even more sterling 25-5 (.83) mark under Andy Landers.
The Lady Bulldogs are 14-1 all-time in season openers at Stegeman Coliseum.
Porsha Phillips posted career-highs in points (15), rebounds (eight) and steals (four) in her Georgia debut. Both her previous bests were established during her freshman season at LSU in 2006-07. Phillips topping the dozen points she scored against Alabama and Connecticut; bested the seven rebounds she grabbed versus McNeese State; and three steals against Auburn and Alabama.
Sophomore Jasmine Lee notched her first career start.
Keeping an eye on...
Lady Bulldog Basketball is now five victories shy of becoming the 10th NCAA Division I program with 750 total wins. The Lady Bulldogs have compiled a 745-310 record in 35 seasons of intercollegiate competition in women’s basketball.
Andy Landers is now 10 victories shy of his 800th career win as a collegiate head coach. Andy Landers has recorded a 790-246 mark in 33 campaigns.
Angel Robinson is now one block away from No. 10 La'Keshia Frett among UGA’s career leaders
Updated career Double Digit scoring performances: Ashley Houts, 34 games; Christy Marshall, 22; Porsha Phillips, 6; Danielle Taylor, 3.
Georgia Head Coach Andy Landers
“The girls enjoy practice and they enjoy playing in each others’ company regardless of where we are. The chemistry of this basketball team is very good. Not only do they enjoy playing together, but they enjoy playing hard. We’re not to the point of playing hard that we are going to get to, but they enjoy the point we are at. Whereas a year or two ago, they would not have been comfortable and not wanted a whole lot to do with it.”
“Ashley Houts is just terrific in how she has practiced and played all fall. She doesn’t make that many mistakes. As a freshman, we fed her to the wolves, left her out there for forty minutes. She didn’t know everybody’s name that she was responsible for. Then last year, she grew up a little bit. Now she is a seasoned veteran, smart and talented point guard.
“We’ve got to get a lot better at the turnover margin. Tonight, we weren’t bad. We made some plays and thank goodness we were doing that because that is something else we haven’t done very well over the past two or three years. There has been an emphasis all fall of not just knocking the ball down. Every time they got into place, we had somebody flying. That has been a problem in the past. We can’t get a teammate to release when their buddy deflected a ball. They would just stand and watch and consequently, couldn’t get anyone out in front to throw to and have as a lay up shooter. So we’re getting it together. We have got to get our fingers on more balls and I think we will as our intensity develops.
Alabama State Head Coach Freda Freeman-Jackson
“I think the main thing that hurt us today was that we were just plain out-manned. Georgia is just more athletic than us, and I think that athleticism was obvious in the amount of turnovers Georgia was able to come up with. No matter who we play, we absolutely can not have that many turnovers. Basically, we had too many turnovers and we didn’t rebound well.
“I think the girls played really hard. This was our first game of the season and I think that was obvious today. We played some young girls and I think we have a lot of things to work on for the season. The main thing we will work on in practice this week is passing the ball and have that help us run our offense more fluidly.
“Lumpkin had a great game, but they cut her off in the second half. She couldn’t get anything going in the second half, and that really affected us.
“I think we played great defense today, even though the score didn’t reflect that. But I thought we got after the ball well and got in there and really tried hard.
