BASKETBALL
The No. 8 Georgia Lady Dawgs recorded their highest score in five years in beating Savannah State, 94-57, and celebrating head coach Andy Landers' 800th win at UGA on Tuesday night.
“We had a lot of people play well, and some had more opportunity than others to play better and they cashed in on it," said Landers. "That’s kind of what it boils down to. I say it all the time, but basketball is such a game of opportunity. You get a chance to make a good pass or get an assist, you do it. You get a chance to shoot it, you shoot it. If you don’t get those chances but you get a chance to take a charge, you take the charge. The first thing you do is go to the scoring column. That’s what everyone does to see how someone played and how many points they scored, but we had a lot of people play well in a lot of ways tonight.”
The last time the Lady Dawgs scored over 94 points was Dec. 17, 2007, when they defeated Mercer 102-45.
Georgia (5-0) was highlighted by three double-digit scorers, with Jasmine James putting up a season-high 18 points, Jasmine Hassell recording 14 and Tiaria Griffin also having a season-high performance of 15 points. Hassell led the Lady Dawgs on the boards, for the third time this season, with seven rebounds.
With 11:36 left in the game, Hassell sank a pair of free throws to become Lady Dawg Basketball's 33rd 1,000-point scorer.
Additional season highs notched by Georgia included Tamika Willis' nine points, Shacobia Barbee's six points and Anne Marie Armstrong's four steals.
Savannah State (1-2) was led by Andrietta Thomas, who scored 22 points.
Georgia jumped to an early lead with a 19-4 run to open the game and never looked back. With a little under 14 minutes on the clock, Savannah State closed the gap to 23-13 with a 9-4 run of its own that lasted three minutes.
The Lady Dawgs refused to give the Lady Tigers a chance to come any closer and went on another run, this time outscoring Savannah State 17-2 and increasing the margin to 40-15. In the final four minutes of the period, the teams looked fairly even as Savannah State matched Georgia basket-for-basket. The Lady Dawgs left the court with a 49-26 lead at halftime.
In the first half, Georgia shot a blistering 87.5 percent from the charity stripe as well as recorded a 50 percent effort from the field.
Savannah State played more aggressively in the second half and did not allow Georgia to surge ahead as it did in the first period.
The Lady Dawgs maintained a steady lead of about 27 points for the first eight minutes of the game, until Hassell's 999th and 1,000th points sparked a quick two-minute, 8-0 run that put Georgia up 71-37.
Georgia's largest lead of the game of 38 points occurred three times, the first of which was with 5:15 left in the game and wrapped up a 6-0 push by the Lady Dawgs and brought the score to 81-43. The Lady Tigers executed a 13-6 surge of their own that ran down the clock to 1:39 and decreased Georgia's lead to 87-56.
The Lady Dawgs struck quickly with a 7-0 push that once again brought their lead to 38. Savannah State fought until the final buzzer and hit a free throw with 16 ticks left on the clock to bring the final score to 94-57.
Georgia continued its tremendous shooting from the floor and ended the game with a 50.7 percent showing. Savannah State's 26 rebounds mark the fewest allowed by the Lady Dawg's the season.
The Lady Dawgs will travel to Albuquerque, New Mexico, on Wednesday and will play in the University of New Mexico's Thanksgiving Tournament on Friday and Saturday. Georgia will face Saint Bonaventure at 5:30 p.m. ET on Friday, with New Mexico taking on North Texas in the other first-round matchup.
Notes
• Georgia moves to 6-0 all-time against Savannah State, including a 3-0 record in Athens.
• With tonight’s win, Andy Landers became just the eighth basketball coach in history to have 800 wins at one Division I school. At the end of the game, the other 13 SEC women’s basketball head coaches owned a combined 953 victories at their respective schools. He is only 18 wins shy of his 900th career win.
• Eleven different players played at least 11 minutes in tonight’s game.
Lady Bulldogs In Double Digits
• Jasmine James scored 18 points, the 53rd double digit game of her career, and 3rd of the season.
• Jasmine Hassell scored 14 points, the 47th double digit game of her career, and 4th of the season.
• Tiara Griffin scored 15 points, the first double-digit game of her career.
Coach Andy Landers
On Savannah State…
“They’re very athletic. They shoot it very well, especially in their mid-range game, and they play well off the bounce. Once again, I thought we defended well. We made a decision yesterday that we were going to play some 2-3 zone because we haven’t done that. There’s going to be times where we’ll need to play some zone, and we don’t want it to be on the road or when we’re behind and never have played it before. I was pleased with that, and I thought we did a nice job in the zone. We kept them pushed out for the most part, and we didn’t give up too many open looks.”
Savannah State Head Coach Cedric Baker
On tonight’s game:
“Coming into the game I knew it would be a special game. All of the highlights, coach going after his 800th win, Jasmine Hassell was trying to get 1,000 points so of course we were very elated to be a part of all of that. Of course, we definitely wanted to come in and meet expectations and give a good basketball game and try to come out with a win. Rebounding has been an Achilles heel for us this year and tonight they had great size inside and they pounded on the boards. I think if we had rebounded better and controlled tempo and not given up so many second chance shots and turnovers in the back court it probably would have been a closer game and margin. You have to give Georgia credit. They definitely pressed on the defensive end and they utilized their size on the boards.”
On what to take away:
“This is a great experience for us. Coming in Georgia was ranked 8th in the country. They have a great basketball tradition. My kids, I told them they definitely want to go into arenas and match the intensity. We executed well. I thought in the man to man offense we handled that pressure pretty good. Zone wise I thought we executed better than we had in the past. Even though we got out rebounded I thought we had good position. Now we want to close out on those possessions and not give up so many second chance points. It was a great experience for my kids and I think they will take away from this keeping their composure and being poised.”
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