Turnovers and blown layups have plagued Georgia all season, and it was more of the same on Thursday.
Georgia’s sluggish and sloppy play opened the door for Auburn to beat the Lady Bulldogs 63-58 on Thursday at Stegeman Coliseum.
The loss, coupled with the suspension of freshman guard Ronika Ransford for what Georgia coach Andy Landers termed "failing to take care of academic business," left him in a vengeful mood after the game.
See more photos from the game.
"We’ve missed 2-foot shots all year long, and we missed them tonight," Landers said. "We missed wide-open 1-footers and we missed maybe four of them. We missed one when we’re up by five that would have put us up by seven and there ain’t nobody in blue around us – nobody."
Georgia led 28-24 at halftime, but Auburn hit 14 of 23 (60.9 percent) from the field against Georgia and outscored the Lady Bulldogs 39-30 in the second half. The Lady Tigers also forced 12 second-half turnovers and turned them into 16 points to fuel their rally.
"There’s the problem," Landers said. "We throw the ball inside three times in the first half, and we don’t catch it. That’s a problem. Then we turn it over, and they score 20 points.
"And the turnovers are ridiculous. They’re ridiculous. We’re not talking about forced turnovers. You turn the ball over 17 times and the other team scored 20 points off your turnovers, that’s a problem."
Georgia lost by 33 at Tennessee on Monday. Thursday’s loss knocked the Lady Bulldogs (28-8, 10-5 in the SEC) into a tie with Kentucky (20-7, 10-5) for second place in the SEC. Vanderbilt could also pull into second place by beating Florida.
The Lady Bulldogs picked up some good news late Thursday, however, when South Carolina lost to LSU 54-51 in overtime. The Gamecocks’ loss clinched a top-four finish for Georgia and a first-round bye in next week’s SEC tournament.
"That was definitely something we didn’t want to happen," Georgia guard Jasmine James said. "We kind of talked about how we let one loss turn into another one last year, and we didn’t want that to happen this year. But here we are, kind of sitting in that same situation. I feel like we definitely could have played better. Auburn came out and stayed the course the whole game and took over at the end."
Georgia’s backcourt took a major hit earlier on Thursday when Landers suspended Ransford. The thin backcourt took another shot when starting wing Meredith Mitchell fouled out with 8:25 remaining after only playing 23 minutes.
Landers voiced some of his frustration with Ransford after the game.
"When you don’t go to class and you don’t do what’s expected academically, you suffer the consequences," Landers said. "But unfortunately your team suffers the consequences, too. That’s a very selfish act for an individual to do. I have no idea how long she’ll be out.
Through the SEC tournament, I know that. If she doesn’t get her academic act together, she won’t be back. Why should she? You don’t go to class, you don’t go to school, you don’t meet your appointments, what are you doing here?"
James and freshman Khaalidah Miller both played 40 minutes. Miller hit a career-high six 3-pointers and scored 20 points.
"I don’t think Monday’s loss had anything to do with the way we played in the second half," Miller said. "I think we slacked off a little bit and had too many turnovers. We had 17 turnovers in the game and they scored 20 points. You can’t have that many turnovers."
James, who has been nursing a sprained wrist, hit 4 of 14 from the field and scored eight points with four turnovers. Senior forward Porsha Phillips scored 13 points and had 12 rebounds in her final game at Stegeman Coliseum.
"Forty minutes is a lot of minutes to play consecutively, but that’s the situation we’re in right now with Ronika being out," James said. "Meredith being out definitely hurt because she could have helped us with her defense and rebounding. But we’ve got to be tough enough to push through and keep playing hard."
Auburn’s Alli Smalley scored a game-high 22 points, including 16 in the second half. She scored eight straight in an 8-0 run that gave the Lady Tigers (15-13, 8-7) their first lead with 11 minutes left in the game.
"I was feeling good about how we were playing at the half," Auburn coach Nell Fortner said. "We were only down four. All I told them was just to go back out and keep doing their thing, and they got the job done."
► NOTES: The game was delayed by an inadvertent buzzer in the final minute and the Lady Bulldogs trailing by three. Even with possession and a new shot clock after referees consulted the replay, Georgia failed to score. … Phillips scored 10 of her 12 points in the first half and played 35 minutes.
