Georgia Lady Bulldogs Fall Short On the Road to Arkansas
The Georgia Lady Bulldogs fought back from an 18 point deficit to eventually drop an SEC road game to Arkansas.
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The 24 ranked Georgia Lady Bulldogs dug an 18-point hole early against Arkansas, then closed to within a point with less 30 seconds left before losing to the Razorbacks 54-48 on Monday night.
Despite the loss, Georgia retains the seventh spot in the SEC, but must take care of business during the last two weeks of the season to avoid playing on the opening night of the SEC Women’s Tournament.
Merritt Hempe scored a game-high 16 points to lead Georgia (17-7, 5-6 SEC). Jessica Jackson paced a trio of players in double figures for Arkansas (14-8, 4-6 SEC) with 15 points.
The Lady Bulldogs trailed 47-32 with 8:41 left before a 16-2 run closed the gap to 49-48 with 28 seconds left. Georgia then fouled Jackson, who converted both ends of a one-and-one to push the margin back to 51-48. A pair of potential game-tying 3-pointers by Erika Ford were blocked, but Georgia retained possession with just under 10 seconds remaining.
Head coach Andy Landers was then whistled for two technical fouls for protesting a no-call on a rebound situation from the first 3-point attempt. Jackson made 3-of-4 free throws to supply the game’s final score.
“If I had it to do over, I’d do it again,” Landers told Georgiadogs.com.
Arkansas dominated the night before Georgia’s improbable comeback. The Razorbacks opened the game on a 10-0 run and led by double digits for almost all of the next 20 minutes.
“I thought the game was won in the first 10 minutes,” Landers said. “I thought Arkansas was very, very sharp, ready to play on both ends of the floor and we weren’t. Consequently, we dug ourselves a deep, dark hole that we spent the rest of the night trying to dig out of. Arkansas tattooed us.”
Georgia missed its first seven shots from the field and fell behind 10-0 before Tiaria Griffin got the Lady Bulldogs on the board with a layup at the 13:19 mark. Jackson nailed a 3-pointer from the right wing 14 seconds later and the Razorbacks pushed their advantage to 17-2 before a free-throw line jumper from Hempe.
Arkansas’ first-half lead topped out at 18 points at 24-6 before Georgia put a dent in the margin and trailed 30-16 at halftime.
Georgia trimmed the margin to 35-26 with 14:09 left, but Arkansas responded with a 6-0 surge to push the margin back to 15 points.
The Razorbacks enjoyed the same advantage when a Krista Donald jumper cut the gap to 47-34. Georgia followed with a jumper from Hempe and a layup by Griffin to get within single digits once again. A Melissa Wolff jumper ended that surge, but the Lady Bulldogs scored on a 3-pointer from Pachis Roberts, a reverse layup by Donald, a jumper from Hempe and a banked-in 3-pointer by Ford to close the gap to 49-48.
Jackson, who had missed two free throws before Ford’s trey, hit both ends of the one-and-one before Georgia failed to get a quality 3-point attempt to tie.