Lady Dawgs Fall To Tigers

BASKETBALL

Georgia failed on 12 attempts to tie or take the lead in the second half at LSU on Sunday, eventually falling to the Lady Tigers 47-41 at the Maravich Assembly Center.

"You're talking about two teams that can guard you," Andy Landers said. "I thought we guarded them very well. They guarded us a little better than we guarded them. They got to the offensive boards 18 times so many times we did an excellent job and then just didn't get clean up with the rebound. And then you have to try to defend them for another 30 seconds."

Jasmine Hassell scored a game-high 16 points on 8-of-11 shooting from the field to place Georgia (16-5, 6-2 SEC). Katherine Graham led LSU (15-8, 5-4 SEC) with 14.

"I thought Hassell was great when she got the ball inside, and I thought our guards were great getting the ball to her when they tried to do so," Landers said.

LSU led 27-21 at halftime and scored on its opening possession of the second half before a 7-0 surge pulled the Lady Dawgs within one at 29-28 with 17:19 left.

Georgia then failed to convert on 10 opportunities to tie or take the lead over the next 5:08.

"We got some good looks, and we had the right people getting those looks," Landers said. "I thought we executed very well during most of that stretch. Some of the shots really looked good as they were going, but we couldn't get any of them to fall."

The Lady Tigers converted on consecutive possessions to expand their lead to 36-30 at the 9:41 mark.

Tamika Willis answered for Georgia, scoring five straight to close the gap back to one at just 1:42 later.

The Lady Dawgs then missed two more chances to take a lead before a Latear Eason lay-up started a 9-5 run to end the game.

The Lady Tigers opened up a 14-7 lead just over five minutes into the contest and controlled the scoreboard for the remainder of the period. LSU's lead topped out at 23-12 with 3:58 left in the half before the Lady Dawgs scored nine of the final 13 points to trim the margin to 27-21.

Georgia missed on a chance to close the gap even further. A Tamika Willis steal at midcourt led to a Jasmine James three-point attempt that rimmed out. Phillips grabbed the rebound but could not get a shot off before the horn sounded.

Georgia will now return to Athens for a three-game home-stand with games against Arkansas on Thursday, Alabama next Sunday and Vanderbilt next Thursday.

The first 1,000 youth eighth grade and younger at the Alabama game will receive a replica Lady Dawg jersey.