Lady Vols Alpha-Roll Dawgs, Advance

I'd give you the final score, but there are still eight minutes of game left. Tennessee leads 55-23 and all Lady Vols have scored.

[EDIT: Final score is 75-41 Tennessee, with the cap considerably narrowed by some late Georgia threes.]

Georgia played their first SEC tournament game last night, beating Missouri 75-64.  Tennessee popped the cork on their postseason tonight.  Normally, the fresh team can be a bit rusty heading into it, which allows the continuing team to get a bit of a lead.

That happened, and it's notable.

Georgia's "groove" and Tennessee's rust account for Georgia's 4-2 lead to open the game.

15 points later, Tennessee led 17-4 and the game just got worse from there.  The Lady Vols held the Bulldogs to 11 points in the first half, which is tied for Tennessee's fifth best defensive performance (a late two kept it from being third best at 9 points).  The Lady Vols led 31-11 at halftime, and there was no doubt in anybody's mind that they were going to be able to rotate the bench through and save some energy for Saturday.

More about that lead: every Lady Vols who had scored (6 of them) had more points than all Lady Bulldogs not named Tiara Griffin.  Rebounding was about 25-12 in favor of Tennessee.

But the reality is, this was almost predictable.  Georgia's losing streak has gotten inside their heads; by now, Holly Warlick owns Landers' head so thoroughly that she collects insurance every time he has a bloody nose.  It's not that Andy's lost his touch, but his teams recently don't seem to handle moments of frustration well.  They miss a couple easy shots, Tennessee gets a couple easy buckets, and the scoreboard swing puts UGA into a shell.  It's why we keep getting just a bit cockier every time we write a pregame thread for UT/UGA, knowing that someday we'll be eating our words.  But until then, it's up to Georgia to do something about it.

And on that note, I actually like Landers.  When his teams are on, they can actually be a lot of fun to watch: very balanced and not prone to sloppy play. And he's doing a job I don't have a prayer of doing myself, so hats off to him.

Enough about Georgia, though.  Tonight is Tennessee's, as they get to wait for the winner of Mississippi State vs. Kentucky.