University of Georgia Athletics
Game Notes: Lady Bulldogs vs. Oklahoma
November 14, 2009 | Women's Basketball
Lady Bulldog Basketball Game Notes
Georgia vs. Oklahoma
Sunday, November 15 at 2:30 p.m. ET
Radio: AM 960 The Ref in Athens
Promotions:
The first 2,000 fans in attendance will receive Georgia Basketball t-shirts.
The basics
The Georgia Lady Bulldogs – featuring some familiar faces with a major influx of newcomers – will christen their 2009-10 campaign with an intersectional SEC-Big 12 matchup against Oklahoma on Sunday afternoon at 2:30 in Stegeman Coliseum.
The Lady Bulldogs enter the season ranked No. 21 in the Associated Press poll but unranked in the ESPN/USA Today coaches poll, while the Sooners are at No. 8 and No. 13 in the coaches and media rankings, respectively.
“It will be a big game,” head coach Andy Landers said. “All openers are so I don’t guess it’s any different in that regard. Everybody will be excited and I’m sure both teams and both coaching staffs are ready to get out and play. You have two quality teams that both are in a little bit of a rebuilding state. At the same time, both teams have some veterans coming back who have proven that they’re good players.”
The Lady Bulldogs return a trio of starters from last season, pre-season All-SEC picks Ashley Houts, Angel Robinson and Porsha Phillips. After that, Georgia’s experiences drops off considerably. Jaleesa Rhoden and Meredith Mitchell also return, giving the Lady Dogs five returning letterwinners.
Rounding out Georgia’s roster are six newcomers – five freshmen and a junior college transfer.
Oklahoma, a 2009 Final Four team, returns its entire backcourt of Danielle Robinson, Amanda Thompson and Whitney Hand.
Added Landers: “On paper, it appears to be teams that contrast a bit...us with Robinson and Phillips inside returning. They’ve lost their inside game but they have Hand and Robinson and Thompson coming back on the perimeter. They’re a guard-veteran team and we’re a forward-veteran team.”
Series history vs. the Sooners
The Lady Bulldogs own a 3-1 edge in their all-time series with Oklahoma, including an 88-79 victory in the only previous matchup in Athens on Dec. 13, 1998.
Georgia swept both ends of a home-and-home series in the late-90s. The Lady Bulldogs topped the Sooners, 94-76, in the first meeting in Norman on Dec. 11, 1997. Twins Coco and Kelly Miller, then freshmen, combined for 48 points, 17 rebounds, 11 assists and 11 steals in that contest.
Georgia also secured a 94-70 win in a Coaches vs. Cancer Classic game in Madison, Wis., on Nov. 22, 2000.
Oklahoma earned its first win over the Lady Bulldogs two seasons ago, when another set of twins, Ashley and Courtney Paris, accounted for 32 points and 19 rebounds for the Sooners in a 65-57 victory.
Marshall out for season
Christy Marshall, a returning starter for the Lady Bulldogs, will miss the 2009-10 season due to a torn anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in her right knee.
Marshall, a 6-1, guard from Savannah, Ga., injured her knee in a team workout on Wednesday, October 13, two days before the official opening of practice. The ACL tear was later confirmed through an MRI.
“It rips my guts out every time a kid falls and grabs their knee,” Andy Landers said. “It’s an all-too-common injury in women’s basketball. My heart goes out to Christy. We’re all in a state of shock at this point.”
Marshall started 21 of 31 games played for Georgia in 2008-09, averaging 8.8 points and 4.5 rebounds per game. For her career, she has played in 95 games with 28 starts and produced averages of 7.7 points and 3.6 rebounds.
In 2007, Marshall was named the SEC’s Sixth Woman of the Year by league coaches.
Red, White & Blue together
Georgia’s Ashley Houts and Oklahoma’s Danielle Robinson – two of the nation’s premier point guards who shared that role for the U.S. National Team that won the Gold Medal at the World University Games over the summer – will square off today.
Houts and Robinson virtually split the playing time at point, with Robinson averaging 21.0 mpg and Houts logging 19.3.
Houts started four games and averaged 8.3 points per game by connecting on 52.6 percent of her field goal attempts, 47.1 percent of her three-pointers and 90.9 of her attempts at the line. She also averaged 1.7 steals and 1.6 assists.
The medal was Houts’ second international Gold in the past three years. In 2007, she was the lone rising sophomore on the American squad that won the FIBA U21 World Championships.
Robinson started the other three World University contests and averaged 4.6 points and leading the team with averages of 3.3 assists and 2.3 steals per game.
The U.S. squad posted a 7-0 record in Belgrade, Serbia, defeating its opposition by an average of 33.1 points per game.
Tradition Always Graduates to the tune of 102%
There’s a common catch phrase used by numerous college athletic teams: Tradition Never Graduates. Well, with Lady Bulldog Basketball, that saying has been altered to Tradition ALWAYS Graduates.
During his 30 seasons at Georgia, Andy Landers has coached 54 four-year letterwinners. Only one of those players, 2009 senior Danielle Taylor, has not earned their degree from the UGA. Taylor, a Social Work major, is spending this year completing a year-long internship she could not undertake while still playing basketball and will receive her degree in May 2010.
Landers’ only two non-graduating four-year letterwinners other than Taylor completed their degrees in 2090. Kedra Holland-Corn (above left with Landers) secured her degree in Sociology in May, while Lady (Hardmon) Grooms received her diploma in Child & Family Development in August.
Adding to the impressive ledger is the fact Tina Taylor actually received three degrees while she was at UGA for six years of eligibility due to knee injuries. Taylor earned her bachelor’s in Accounting in four years, added a second degree in Finance in her fifth year and received a Master’s in Accounting in the final year in Athens.
To calculate Landers’ unofficial graduation rate, we feel strongly that he should be awarded “extra credit” for the extra degrees Taylor earned while eligible to compete. Therefore, 54 four-year Lady Bulldogs possess a total of 55 diplomas from the University of Georgia, giving Landers a graduation rate of 102 percent!
That tally doesn’t even include the degree in Child & Family Development fifth-year senior and three-year letterwinner Angel Robinson (above right with Landers) has already earned. Robinson is now pursuing a master’s in Adult Education.
Exhibition: What we learned
For the most part, Andy Landers saw what he expected during last Sunday’s 80-49 exhibition win over Clayton State.
“The exhibition went much like I thought it would and hoped in many ways that it would not,” Landers said. “Our young players are still young. They need some experience. They need to grow some teeth, be more aggressive, ratchet up the intensity. Our veterans played reasonably well. We’re a team that’s going to be relying on these new players so they’ve got to come along and they’ve got to come along quick. We made a lot of mistakes, but we did a lot of things well, too. We pressed well. We had good energy up and down the floor. At times, we defended well. There were a lot of positives and a lot of negatives.”
Record number of TV dates!
Fourteen Georgia regular-season games will be televised this season. That tally matches the most in Lady Bulldog history. In 2006-07, 14 regular-season dates were among the school-record 19 TV games that aired that season.
A dozen of UGA’s 16 Southeastern Conference contests and two non-conference games will be on television.
The Lady Bulldogs’ matchups with Georgia Tech and at Clemson will air on CSS, two of six appearances on the network. CSS also will televise SEC home dates versus Ole Miss, LSU, South Carolina and Alabama.
FSN will produce four league games: at Vanderbilt, versus Tennessee in Athens, at Mississippi State and at Kentucky.
Games against Florida in Athens and at Auburn will air nationally on ESPNU, and the Arkansas game on Feb. 28 will be broadcast on the SEC Network.
Georgia’s game at Florida also will be televised by either ESPN2, FSN or Sun Sports.
Georgia annually is one of the most televised women’s basketball programs in the nation. Over the past six seasons, an average of more than 16 games per year have aired on TV.
Media says 3rd, Coaches 4th
The Lady Bulldogs were picked to finish third in the Southeastern Conference in balloting of league media, while conference coaches tabbed Georgia fourth in the pre-season.
Both bodies did agree in naming Lady Bulldog seniors Ashley Houts and Angel Robinson to their first-team All-SEC predictions. In addition, the coaches included junior Porsha Phillips as a second-team selection.
The media and coaches also disagreed on their SEC Champion prediction. The media installed LSU as its favorite, and the coaches named Tennessee as such.
Following the Tigers in the media’s predictions were Tennessee, the Lady Bulldogs, Vanderbilt, Mississippi State, Florida, Arkansas, Auburn, Ole Miss, South Carolina, Kentucky and Alabama.
Trailing the Lady Volunteers according to the coaches will be LSU, Mississippi State, Georgia, Vanderbilt, South Carolina, Florida, Auburn, Arkansas, Ole Miss, Kentucky and Alabama.
Simply put: she’s Houtstanding
Thanks to the efforts of research guru Dave McMahon, we now know that Ashley Houts has played more minutes in her career than any other Division women’s basketball player in nation playing in 2009-10.
Houts has played the third-most minutes of any player in the country over the past three seasons, and the two players ahead of her (and the two behind for that matter) won’t be playing college basketball this season as outlined below.
National MP Leaders (2007-09)
| Rk | Player | MP | GP |
| 1. | Epiphanny Prince, Rutgers | 3,623 | 103 |
| 2. | Renee Montgomer, UConn | 3,570 | 113 |
| 3. | Ashley Houts, Georgia | 3,567 | 99 |
| 4. | Takia Starks, Texas A&M | 3,500 | 103 |
| 5. | Kristi Cirone, Illinois State | 3,484 | 101 |
A question of “when” not “if”
With a top-five recruiting class joining the Lady Bulldogs this fall, the long-standing Andy Landers’ tradition of starting freshmen will no doubt continue.
All told, Landers has started 62 freshmen during his first 30 seasons at Georgia, including 21 standouts who got the nod for their collegiate debuts.
Four of five returning Lady Bulldog letterwinners – Ashley Houts, Christy Marshall, Angel Robinson and Meredith Mitchell – are included on that ledger, with Houts also being one of the 21 to open their playing careers in Red & Black on the floor for the season opener.
Lady Bulldogs sign three
Three premier prospects have signed letters of intent to join the Lady Bulldogs during the NCAA’s early signing period. Arieal Johnson and Ronika Ransford inked their intentions on Wednesday, while Khaalidah Miller followed suit on Thursday.
Johnson, a 6-5, forward, is a native of Havelock, N.C., who has played the past three seasons at Oak Hill Academy in Virginia. She’s ranked as the nation’s No. 18 post prospect by both the All-Star Girls Report and Hoopgurlz.
“Arieal is going to give us the size that we’re needing inside,” Andy Landers said. “If you drew up a player from a physique standpoint, you’d draw a picture of Arieal. She’s got great size, great length and a great body type. She runs extremely well and can score it from inside and out to 15 feet. She’s a very, very good player who’s only going to get better.”
A year ago, Johnson averaged 10 points, 12 rebounds and four blocks per game in her second season at Oak Hill.
“I couldn’t be more excited that Arieal is headed to the University of Georgia,” said Oak Hill coach Mike Rodgers. “I’m so pleased she selected Georgia because it’s a great program and Coach Landers has such a reputation for developing players. I know she’s going to continue to develop in a big way at Georgia. Arieal made the decision three years ago to come here and to be away from home and be a part of our program. I’m so grateful that it has turned out this way for her. She’s played herself into this situation. She made a lot of sacrifices. It’s not easy to go away from home and leave your friends and be at a boarding school. Arieal deserves this measure of success. She’s certainly earned it.”
Ransford, a 5-7, guard from Washington, D.C., is ranked as high as No. 11 overall nationally and is listed among the nation’s top-35 prospects by five different recruiting services. She is ranked No. 11 by Peach State Hoops, No. 13 by Blue Star, No. 16 by the All-Star Girls Report, No. 21 by Hoopgurlz and No. 34 by the Collegiate Girls Basketball Report.
“Ronika is a multi-talented and an extremely athletic guard who can play both the ‘1’ and the ‘2,’” Landers said. “She can score and penetrate and guard you. She has a great, great future ahead of her. She has extreme quickness and explosiveness. She’s just an outstanding player.”
Ransford has led H.D. Woodson High to three straight city championships. She was named MVP of the city finals as a freshman after scoring 31 points in the championship game, averaged 17.1 points as a sophomore and scored 19 second-half points in the 2009 city title tilt.
“I’m just glad I had the opportunity to work with Ronika,” Woodson coach Frank Oliver said. “I can’t say enough good things about her. She’s one of those players who comes along once in a blue moon. She’s not only gifted athletically, she’s gifted intellectually. She has a very high basketball IQ. It’s not very common to have a player who can think the game and have the physical abilities to take over a game as well. Ronika is that player. That’s from the heart. It’s been a joy to work with her. It’s definitely going to be exciting to watch her play at Georgia over the next four years. She’s going to give you plenty of highlight clips and plenty of wins. There’s no limitations to what she can do.”
Miller, a 5-9 guard from Douglass High School in Atlanta and the highest ranked prospect in the state, was named first-team All-State for Class AAAAA by the Georgia Sports Writers Association as a sophomore and junior. She is ranked as the nation’s No. 33 overall prospect and No. 7 guard by the All-Star Girls’ Report. Miller is also listed as No. 36 by Hoopgurlz, No. 40 by Blue Star, No. 42 by Peach State Hoops and No. 57 by the Collegiate Girls Basketball Report.
“Khaalidah is a terrific athlete,” Landers said. “She has the prototypical size and strength and quickness. She’s versatile and could play anywhere on the perimeter. She has terrific stamina and running ability. She can score off the dribble and can take you to the rack but also has extended range. She’s the whole package.”
Miller has been the leading scorer for Douglass during each of her first three seasons with the Lady Astros. She averaged 13.9 points as a freshman, 16.4 as a sophomore and 21.8 as a junior. Last season, she also averaged 7.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 3.3 steals and 2.3 blocks while connecting on 53.5 percent of her shots from the floor, including 45.8 percent from three-point range.
“Khaalidah is a go-getter,” Douglass coach Vernise Harris-Hill said. “She’s always been that way. She helped us make history here at Douglass. She was only the second ninth grader ever to start for us, and she helped us make it to the Final Four as a freshman. She was the missing piece that helped get us there. She’s set the tone for the Lady Astros since the day she got here. Khaalidah hates to lose and she’ll do whatever it takes for the team to succeed. She’ll take the last-second shot or get the key rebound. She’s just an all-around great athlete and basketball player. She’s very unique to me.”
The trio of prospects continue a recruiting resurgence for Lady Bulldog Basketball. Georgia’s current freshman class featured four players – Anne Marie Armstrong, Jasmine Hassell, Jasmine James and Tamika Willis – who were ranked among the nation’s top-50 prospects by one or more national recruiting services.
Taylor joins radio crew
Former UGA two-sport letterwinner Maria Taylor will join longtime play-by-play announcer Jeff Danztler to comprise the Lady Dogs’ radio announce team this season.
Dantzler will be calling Lady Bulldog Basketball for the 17th season.
Taylor, who serves as a reporter for georgiadogs.com, was a standout for the Georgia volleyball program who also played for the Lady Bulldogs during the 2006-07 season. She was a three-time All-SEC performer in volleyball and ranks No. 4 all-time in kills (1,729). Taylor played in 22 games for the Lady Bulldogs during their 2007 “Sweet 16” campaign, averaging 1.2 points and 1.9 rebounds per game.
