For the second consecutive game, the Lady Dogs went on the road to face a middle-of-the-pack SEC team that was desperate for a high-profile upset that would punch their ticket for the postseason. On Thursday, Georgia held on in overtime at Kentucky. On Sunday, Georgia withstood a tenacious challenge from Auburn before emerging with a 62-55 win.

Janese Hardrick picked up at Auburn where she left off during overtime at Lexington. After an early flurry that included three-pointers from Darrah and Houts, Hardrick was Georgia’s main threat from outside. She was also effective penetrating to the basket, added seven rebounds, and she helped to seal the game at the foul line. It was a very solid 20-point performance from the senior, and her spark off the bench was the difference in the game. Auburn was effective in preventing Tasha Humphrey from getting on a roll, particularly in rebounding, but Tasha still finished with 14 points.

Georgia shot just 24% from outside, and Humphrey was well-defended, so Georgia had to find points where they could get them in this low-scoring game. Christy Marshall had 12 points on some tough penetration and mid-range jump shots. Megan Darrah contributed nine points, mostly in the first half, and she was big on the glass with seven rebounds. Struggles from outside and a relatively high 17 turnovers made it difficult for Georgia to pull away and let Auburn hang around until the final minutes.

The Lady Dogs have the week off before their regular season finale on Sunday against Arkansas. All eyes will be on tonight’s Tennessee at LSU game. Should Tennessee win, all Georgia would need is a win on Sunday against Arkansas to earn the #2 seed in the SEC Tournament. If LSU manages the upset at home, Georgia would earn the #3 seed. Regardless, they’ll get a Thursday bye in the conference tournament. We’ll have a preview next week of the tournament, held March 1-4 in Duluth, Ga.

As much as Georgia looked as if they were going through the motions against Kennesaw on Wednesday, they came out the exact opposite in front of a sold-out crowd yesterday against Auburn. Georgia won 86-79 to move to 7-5 in the SEC. In a whistle-happy game that saw 60 fouls, 70 free-throws, and 5 Auburn disqualifications, Georgia looked much more like a team regrouping for a run at the postseason than they did earlier in the week.

They had control of the game from the start, mixing inside and outside on offense. They had 20 points before you could blink. Though it was a track meet for a while there in the first half without much defense, Georgia just had too much. Auburn wasn’t able to put many runs together, and Georgia extended the lead to double-digits by halftime.

Georgia led by as many as 21 in the second half before garbage time. Auburn hit some threes down the stretch and came within as close as six points, but Georgia held on and hit enough foul shots and baskets to hold them off. The game was disjointed and over-officiated in the second half, and that can’t take away from the outstanding effort.

Georgia had outstanding offensive balance with six players scoring at least nine points. Sundiata Gaines scored 21 points and wasn’t far away from a triple-double. His penetration made the offense work – he was able to drive and either get a shot off, get fouled (more often than not), or dish to Brown. This is Gaines at his best, and, with the help of a few timely three-pointers, this is the strength of the Georgia offense. If they attack this way in their remaining games, we should be just fine. For the second straight game, Georgia didn’t stand around outside jacking three-pointers. Though they did attempt 21 from outside, the 43% success rate shows that those shots weren’t forced and came from within the offense, usually after a kickout from penetration.

Next up is a trip to Ole Miss where the Rebels will be smarting from a bad loss at Arkansas.

Georgia is getting some media attention this week for some new academic rules for student-athletes that include fines and loss of playing time for missing classes and tutoring sessions. Imagine the bill if you got fined $10 every time you blew off a class.

I have mixed feelings about these policies. I’m not pleased when we add another layer of oversight for coaches and administrators whether we’re talking about academics or disciplinary matters. (Why is the coach always compelled to do something if someone on his team has a suspended driver’s license?) Sure, it’s in the coach’s best interest to have his players eligible and out of trouble; it’s hard to play someone who’s in jail or not enrolled. Still, at some point they need to do their job instead of monitoring attendance at study hall.

On the other hand, if we are going to hold coaches and administrators responsible for the education and graduation of student-athletes, then I don’t blame them for introducing such policies.

I think this is one of those things that will go under the radar until a high-profile player misses a big game because of these rules.

Last night’s Lady Dogs game at Kentucky was every bit the tough test I thought it might be. Georgia finally prevailed 82-72 in overtime with an outburst of 16 points in those five extra minutes. Kentucky played with the urgency and emotion that you would expect from a team who put the "must-win" label on the game. Georgia had Kentucky down by twelve in the first half and eleven in the second half, but the Wildcats kept fighting back. Other recent Georgia teams might not have survived this fierce of an upset bid – Georgia had in fact lost in Lexington two years ago – but this team was able to stay just far enough out in front to hold off the late challenge.

Tasha Humphrey was spectacular again with 28 points and 10 rebounds. Five Lady Dog players scored in double-figures and Ashley Houts added nine points. Georgia got to the line 29 times and hit 24 of them. Janese Hardrick scored six points in overtime after some costly mistakes towards the end of regulation.

Kentucky stayed in the game with one of their better perfomances of the year behind the arc. Both teams shot over 40% from outside. That isn’t so impressive for a Georgia team with the second-best percentage behind the arc in the SEC, but Kentucky was shooting under 30% from outside. Samantha Mahoney scored 23 points, including 12 from behind the arc, and several other Wildcat players came up with big outside shots. Georgia played to the scouting report and favored a zone defense focused on the inside game over tight perimeter defense. Kentucky made the most of those open looks and also got some baskets from the high post. Though Georgia outrebounded Kentucky, a lapse on the defensive glass helped Kentucky get back in the game. With Georgia up by eleven in the second half, Kentucky scored off of offensive rebounds on consecutive possessions to cut the lead to seven and started a run that would reduce Georgia’s lead to one.

I was a bit surprised that Georgia didn’t show much of the full-court pressure that had been so successful in the past two games. They forced turnovers on Kentucky’s first two possessions, and the Wildcats are near the bottom of the league in turnover margin, so I thought the potential for effective pressure was there. As it was, Georgia had to play a lot of halfcourt defense, and they only forced 14 Kentucky turnovers. It didn’t help in terms of pressure that Houts, Georgia’s steals leader, had to play the entire second half with four fouls.

The Lady Dogs are now in control of third place in the SEC and could move into second if they continue to win and if Tennessee wins at LSU. Georgia’s remaining games at Auburn and against Arkansas – two teams in the lower half of the conference with a bit less to play for than Kentucky. So the Lady Dogs seem to be in good shape if they can remain focused and driven heading into the tournament in Duluth in two weeks.

The SEC standings are very crowded, and there still could be a lot of movement in tournament seeds over the final week of the regular season. Right now it looks as if just one loss could separate the second seed from the fifth seed, and a very capable Kentucky or Mississippi State team could wind up as Georgia’s quarterfinals opponent.

The Lady Dogs face perhaps their most difficult challenge left in the regular season tonight at Kentucky. As I said the other day, Kentucky is backed into a corner right now. They started the season ranked, but now they’re desperate to salvage this season and earn another postseason bid.

Last year, Georgia’s speed at guard ate Kentucky alive for a blowout win. The Wildcats are coming off a loss to Tennessee in which they had a season high in turnovers. That’s a good sign for a Georgia team which has thrived off of turnovers and the transition game in its last two outings, but now they face a better opponent with something to play for. If they keep up the defensive fire they’ve shown over the past week, they’ll be in great shape and should be able to get out in transition again.

Things could become more difficult for Georgia in a halfcourt game. Kentucky has some nice size inside, and Georgia will need solid foul-free performances from Robinson, Humphrey, and Darrah to keep Kentucky’s front line from hurting them. They’re not a particularly good three-point shooting team, so Georgia’s effectiveness in denying the entry passes will be key. Kentucky’s best bet is to keep the game low-scoring and make Georgia grind out the offense. With that strategy, Kentucky has beaten Ole Miss, come very close against Vanderbilt, and lost 53-51 to a Top 10 Ohio State team.

The Dawgs overcame a six-point second half deficit last night to avoid a huge upset at the hands of Kennesaw State. With Georgia still in the discussion for a postseason bid, a loss in this game would have been devastating. With the game tied coming out of the final official timeout, Georgia finished strong, hit their free throws, and got some key backbreaking shots from their upperclassmen. We had hoped this would be a game in which the Dawgs regrouped and built on the win at South Carolina, but instead they got caught in a fight for survival.

Though Georgia shot well from the floor and the free throw line, they only had 48 field goal attempts. Kennesaw did a lot to minimize Georgia’s possessions. They had 15 offensive rebounds. They used the clock well to shorten the game. Most importantly, they took advantage of Georgia’s carelessness and created 18 turnovers including 14 steals. Though Kennesaw only got 18 points off those Georgia turnovers, they still meant empty possessions for Georgia.

Like many, I looked at the game as a glimpse of what life would be like without Mike Mercer. While we can’t say how things would have gone with him in the lineup, we can at least look at the areas where he usually had an impact. The first obvious one is on defense. Kennesaw had a 6’4" guard hit six three-pointers as Georgia’s wing defense suffered without Mercer. Turnovers were another problem – Humphrey , expected to be Gaines’s backup at point guard, had a team-high four turnovers.

The biggest difference without Mercer might have been in Georgia’s offensive mindset. They only attempted 15 three-pointers in the game. Georgia has often attempted over 15 three-pointers in the first half alone. The Bulldogs eventually got past what Humphrey called "selfish" play and finally worked the ball inside. They shot over 60% in the second half while attempting only four three-pointers. They fed the ball to Takais Brown, and Sundiata Gaines was effective getting to the basket. When it came down to it, Georgia leaned on their two emerging go-to guys, and they responded. Though turnovers were a problem, Georgia got the ball to their playmakers, and the shots were efficient. That’s a positive development, and we’ll see if they carry that into the Auburn game or fall back into bad habits.

The one really big thing to take away from this game is that while we kick around what-ifs about the end of the season, this team is not good enough to overcome poor effort in SEC games. Though there are several chances to earn wins coming up, playing flat or with less-than-optimal effort will likely result in a loss in any remaining game.

It was disappointing to hear coaches and players acknowledge that the team was flat. They’ve worked so hard and have such a great opportunity in front of them, and they nearly blew it all last night because they weren’t up for the game. Sure, it wasn’t an SEC game or a big-name opponent. Sure, the crowd was lethargic. Sure, the team might still be a bit numb from the loss of Mercer. Regardless of the opponent you’d still hope for a bit more instensity, hustle, and focus from a team with so much to play for and less than a month left in the regular season.

What should give us a bit of concern is that it seems as if the team is struggling to buy into good game plans and coaching. Humphrey admitted, "We didn’t come in with the game plan that we had planned to do, and we got exposed by it. It really should’ve gone to the post every time down court because their tallest player was 6-6. We went away from that and played selfish again." I’m glad he recognized that fact and demonstrated why Georgia was able to be so effective at the end of the game, but why in the world at this point in the season are we still talking about guys getting away from the game plan? That’s a red flag for the stretch run if guys continue to freelance and get away from scouting reports and game plans. Tournament teams need cohesiveness, discipline, and a good strategy.

We can hope that they just sleepwalked against a and that their heads will be in the game starting on Saturday. Georgia had a run of sluggish starts before the nice win at South Carolina; it was almost as if the emotional stretch leading up to the "Do it for Broph" win over LSU took its toll on the intensity of the team. The home crowd should be back in force for Auburn; there are only a handful of tickets left. Though all of the remaining games are important now, a home game against an SEC West opponent is as close to a must-win as there is.

Bracketology wears me out.

I’ll come right out and admit that. I just don’t get the point of calling the #7 seed in the Midwest Regional in February. Many of us, myself included, were sure that Georgia was heading for a postseason of some kind after beating Alabama in early February 2006. Then the rest of the season happened.

More than that, I just get tired of the politicking that goes on around the bubble and projecting which teams will be in and out. What I really dislike about it is the mindset it forces on many of us. We get the idea in our heads that 9-7 or even 8-8 is the goal, and we do the RPI calculus to show how that record distinguishes us from the truckload of other ordinary teams who also flirted with .500 in their conferences. We work backwards from that 9-7 mark to identify those nine wins and hope that we don’t drop one and have to win at Ole Miss to make up the difference. To me, it’s like focusing on becoming bowl-eligible. Why not just play the games and win?

This mindset is all over the SEC this year. With an undefeated Florida well out ahead of a slew of teams all with at least four conference losses, the label “Florida and the Seven Dwarves” is unfortunately pretty apt. That label comes from a very interesting piece today in the Chattanooga Times Free Press by Darren Epps that talks about the strength of the SEC with Jerry Palm of CollegeRPI.com. Palm attempts to deliver a dose of reality to the SEC: there aren’t very many impressive teams in the SEC once you get past Florida. He projects just five SEC teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Palm correctly points out that the strength of the SEC isn’t so much a lot of good teams as it is the lack of really bad teams. Other than South Carolina, most SEC teams can hold their own. That’s just good enough to get you in the discussion though. From there, you’re hoping that your good features outshine your warts. You’re left with weak and pathetic arguments like Randolph Morris’s "the way we played should say something about our team." Close is good enough in horseshoes, hand grenades, and Kentucky games against Top 25 teams.

Palm is brutally honest to the SEC West. "I see six NIT-quality teams in the West," he said. The winner of the SEC West might have an 8-8 conference record. Preseason favorite and last year’s great story LSU is bringing up the rear. That’s not parity to be celebrated; it’s just not good basketball. They’re not bad – any of them – but a game or two separating first and last place isn’t a sign of exceptional quality.

The East is a bit better, but they have their own problems. Tennessee might be the second-best team in the league, but they stumbled enough early in the season to be just around .500 in conference at this point, and they haven’t done much yet on the road. Kentucky looks to be just strong enough to merit a postseason bid, but they don’t seem likely to hang around long. Vanderbilt had a tremendous run against ranked teams but has been inconsistent and found it hard to gain traction. Georgia is dangerous but is vulnerable to poor shooting and has lost a key starter.

I’m by no means saying that these SEC teams, especially Georgia, should be left out. Teams don’t have to be flawless to get postseason bids, and they’re competing with other teams with their own pluses and minuses. All conferences will be campaigning to get as many bids as possible, and most have teams in the same position as the SEC’s "dwarves" . The fifth-place team in the ACC is just 5-5 right now. There are so many teams in this boat that selection committee chairman Gary Walters said, "conference tournaments could take on increasing significance this year in helping us to separate teams."

We’re all happy with the progress that the Georgia team has shown this year, and it would be gratifying for the all of the sacrifice and work put in over the past three years to be rewarded. The best way they can get there is to forget about aiming for 8 or 9 wins and have the kind of finish to the season that separates themselves from the rest of the SEC pack that’s drifting towards room temperature. If they do end up around that 8-8 or 9-7 mark, they’re putting an awful lot of pressure on themselves for the conference tournament, doing a lot of scoreboard-watching, and leaving their fate in the hands of the selection committee. Do better and the only bracketology they’ll have to worry about is their seeding.

Chip Towers in the AJC reports that MRI results indicate that Mike Mercer “only” tore one ligament in his freakish injury on Saturday. While an ACL tear might not sound like good news, consider that the worst case scenario with that kind of knee dislocation is an Albert Hollis-type tearing of multiple ligaments complete with blood vessel and/or nerve damage. As it turns out, Mercer’s damage is limited to an ACL tear and a moderate MCL sprain. That’s one hell of a strong knee.

Mercer will have surgery and begin the road back from ACL surgery, but at least there is apparently a road back now and a chance that he will be on the court again in the future. All of that was in doubt until these MRI results came out. The six-month recovery mentioned by Felton puts him back prior to the start of next season, but we’ll see how ready he is to go full-speed at that time. In many cases, it can be as long as a year to eighteen months before someone is really back from an ACL tear.

Best of luck to Mike in his recovery.

Lady Dogs

The Lady Dogs continue to roll with their second straight rout. After a 41-point win at Alabama on Thursday, they ran South Carolina out of Stegeman yesterday. They used a stifling defense to jump out to a 36-8 advantage and cruised the rest of the way to an 81-57 win. Tasha Humphrey recorded another double-double, the three-pointers were falling again, and Georgia outrebounded a much taller South Carolina team. Georgia’s pressure kept South Carolina from even getting the ball to their post players, and the large deficit forced the Gamecocks away from their strength inside into a jumpshooting team.

Georgia’s most difficult challenge in their remaining three regular season games might be this Thursday at Kentucky. The Wildcats are a quality team, and it will be a hostile environment at Rupp Arena. This is a classic "take care of business game". Kentucky, at 16-10 (5-6 SEC), is fighting for the postseason and trying to finish in the upper half of the SEC after their best season in decades a year ago. In short, they’re backed into a corner and desperate. With a shot at the SEC’s #2 seed, Georgia must win out and have Tennessee beat LSU. The Lady Dogs look to be building into good form late in the season, and we’ll see how ready they are to make a push into the postseason with their performance at Kentucky.

Gym Dogs

I don’t know much about gymnastics, but I do know that a score of 198 is pretty damn good. It’s especially nice coming against rival Alabama. Some Bama falls made the margin wider than usual, but this was much more of a meet that Georgia won than Alabama lost. It’s obvious that this team has the ability to compete at a championship level again, so we’ll tune back in for the SEC championship. With Florida, Georgia, and Alabama ranked 1-2-3 nationally, the SEC championship could be an NCAA title preview.

Georgia Baseball

The news wasn’t as good for the baseball team. Bullpen meltdowns led to a sweep at the hands of defending national champion Oregon State. On Friday and Saturday, Georgia carried big leads into the late innings before giving up six runs in Friday’s ninth inning and seven runs in Saturday’s eighth inning. On Sunday, three runs in the seventh inning broke open a 2-2 tie. It’s way too early to panic, but Coach Perno is considering some remedies. "We’ll probably pull one of our starters and put him in the bullpen to solidify things," he said.

Though the bullpen was ultimately the big story of the weekend, Georgia’s starting pitching was pretty solid against a good opponent. It was also a good debut for a number of younger players like right-fielder Matt Cerione who will be counted on later in the season. They have a ten-day layoff before a trip to Mercer which will be their only road game in the early part of the season.

For much of Saturday night’s game against South Carolina, the news was all good for Georgia. They were well on their way to another season sweep of the Gamecocks. They were shooting from around a 50% clip from outside while still getting the guys inside involved. They were playing disruptive defense. Levi Stukes became Georgia’s top career three-point shooter.

Though Georgia cruised to a relatively easy 73-54 win, they were hit with a devastating injury. With just under ten minutes remaining, Mike Mercer drove quickly towards the baseline, stopped abruptly, and had his right knee dislocate. The prognosis isn’t good. According to head coach Dennis Felton,

“His knee did come out of socket. They were able to slip it back in socket probably within about 90 seconds. But there’s significant ligament damage and he’s likely out for the year.”

Mercer will have an MRI on Sunday to determine the exact extent of the injury. The timing of the injury is very unfortunate: Mercer was just starting to turn his game around. After some pretty public criticism (including on this site), he showed much better shot selection and some more discipline on offense in the two most recent games. Before his injury, he had 12 points, five assists, four rebounds, and was shooting 50% from the floor against South Carolina – by far his most efficient offense in quite some time. “It’s frustrating on behalf of Mike because he was getting back to playing very well,” said Felton.

What Now?

While our first concern is with Mike and his recovery, we also have to think about the impact the injury will have on the lineup. Mercer led the team in field goal attempts, and until recently he had led the team in scoring. His strength on offense was an explosive drive to the basket, and he was a valuable defender and rebounder. Georgia’s offense is losing one of its best slashers and transition finishers. Felton explained, “We don’t have anybody else like Mike. He’s got that kind of electric athleticism – very, very quick, very, very fast and long.”

It seems logical that Terrance Woodbury will move into Mercer’s starting role. He’s a more prototypical small forward with a bit more size and bulk than Mercer though not as quick. Woodbury has shown some spectacular flashes on offense this year off the bench as his defense comes along. Many of us have wondered what Woodbury could do with more playing time, and I guess we’ll get our wish now. Georgia might get a bit of a boost in the halfcourt offense with Woodbury’s size and steadier shooting, but the tradeoff will come in the transition offense and in creating steals and turnovers.

If the Dawgs want to go smaller, Billy Humphrey made a case for more playing time against South Carolina. He scored 14 points on extremely efficient 5-for-6 shooting, had nine rebounds and five assists, and was a big part of Georgia’s defensive effort with seven steals. Not a bad night for the sophomore – it was probably his best all-around game.

Mercer’s injury will probably be felt most at the point guard spot. Mercer was already the backup-by-default at the position behind Sundiata Gaines because there aren’t many other guards with point guard experience or skills on the team. Georgia suffered significantly when Gaines was injured in December, and now they have much less behind him. I would expect that Humphrey will see those minutes behind Gaines.

Georgia’s next game against Kennesaw should be a laugher where they should have the luxury of lots of time in which to try different personnel groupings. The Auburn game next Saturday will be the first SEC test for the lineup with which Georgia will make its late push for the postseason.

As I write this, it’s 46 degrees and overcast in Athens. But they’re playing ball over at Foley Field as the Diamond Dawgs begin the 2007 season against defending NCAA champion Oregon State.

Georgia roared back from a slow SEC start last year to reach Omaha. Though they’re picked to finish fifth in the SEC East, the great thing about college baseball is that the amount of turnover from year to year gives most any team a chance to put a good season together.

What do I expect from the Diamond Dawgs this year? First is a repeat trip to the NCAA Tournament. Though the Diamond Dawgs have been to the College World Series three times in recent years, they’ve often followed up those trips with a down year and no postseason. I would like for them to show that consistency this year and at the minimum earn another NCAA Tournament bid. They lost some good players from last year’s team, so it will take some good coaching and some newcomers stepping in for that to happen.

My second expectation? Simple. Take the season series from Georgia Tech. Again.

It’s hard to take much from a 41-point blowout win, but there were two things worth noting from last night’s 92-51 Lady Dog win at Alabama.

First, it was Georgia’s 20th win of the season. Georgia has won at least 20 games in 23 of coach Andy Landers’ 28 seasons. It’s easy to become bored with that milestone, but when you look around Stegeman and think what a single 20-win season would mean for the men’s program these days, it’s never a small accomplishment. Congratulations to Coach Landers and the team.

Second, Cori Chambers found her shot. You never want to say that someone is out of a slump after just one game, but Chambers showed up in a big way last night. She shot 50% from the floor and over 50% from behind the arc. She made more than two three-pointers for the first time since the Mississippi State game in mid-January. I’ve been critical of Cori here because you expect more from a senior captain, but she deserves some recognition for a great game.

If Chambers can continue to shoot well, Georgia becomes a much more different team. While she was slumping, freshmen Angel Robinson and Christi Marshall have really come on. Robinson earned conference Freshman of the Week honors last week and followed that up with her first double-double last night. With Robinson and Tasha Humphrey playing well inside, Georgia has just been missing that steady outside shot to loosen up defenses. Chambers firing from outside again would make the Georgia offense very, very tough to defend.

South Carolina is next in Athens on Sunday.

As we get ready to welcome the next football signing class, Steve Patterson at UGASports.com compiles some of their signing day coverage going as far back as 1998. Much of it is free content, so read away. Some humorous stuff in there as you remember who did and didn’t pan out.

This morning while we were hitting the snooze button and making coffee, the Georgia football team had finished their first mat drill session of the year. They’re out there before daybreak puking into garbage pails trying to get the mental edge that will mean the extra yard, the extra inch of elevation, the extra burst of speed that will mean the difference in a Georgia win this year.

It’s not just the men struggling with offense.

In four games this year with Tennessee and LSU – their competition for the top of the SEC standings – Georgia has averaged around 52 points per game. In the first three of those games, they at least played defense effectively enough to remain competitive and even beat LSU once. It looked in the first half last night as if that would be the story again. In the second half, even the defense was missing. Tennessee got the ball inside to Candace Parker, and she either made the move to the basket or kicked the ball outside to the open look. Tennessee won 73-57.

The story of the game was possessions. Georgia attempted just 50 shots. Because of turnovers and steals, Tennessee attempted 61. Neither team shot well, but you’d have to really fill up the basket to score many points with just 50 field goal attempts. “The turnovers were too many for us to be in any better shape than we were score-wise,” said coach Andy Landers. Many of those turnovers were Tennessee steals, resulting in some easy transition opportunities for the Lady Vols.

When they could get shots off, Georgia had a problem with what once had been a strength. Much like the men, the Lady Dogs are suffering through problems from outside. Cori Chambers, Georgia’s three-point leader for a season and a career, has dropped off the face of the earth. Since becoming Georgia’s career three-point leader with a 6-for-12 performance at Mississippi State on January 11, Chambers has shot just 5-for-37 from outside (13.5%). She’s not alone though. Georgia didn’t hit their first three-pointer until the final ten minutes of the game last night, and only made two as a team in the game.

As bad as things got last night, and they got pretty bad, Georgia is still in decent position to finish second in the SEC if they can manage to win out. That’s not easy in this conference, but they are finished with their top four opponents: Tennessee, LSU, Vanderbilt, and Ole Miss. Ole Miss and LSU must still play Tennessee. Though Georgia is all but eliminated from the conference title picture now, they are still playing well enough to finish with a high seed in the SEC and NCAA tournaments. If they are to make much of a run in either, that outside shooting is going to have to come around to balance the work that Humphrey and Robinson are doing inside.