Georgia Bulldogs Friday Sports Report: You Win Some, You Lose Some, and Some Are Shelved by Electrical Outages

There are sports galore afoot in Bulldog Nation, and you can’t be expected to keep up with every single one of them all on your own. Fear not, though; we’re here to give you a rapid rundown of the ones being played (or, at least, discussed) today, so you will be completely up to speed heading into your Cocktail Party weekend. Here is what you need to know:

As NCT noted this morning, SEC Basketball Media Day was held today, and the Bulldogs’ head coaches were present to discuss their respective teams. Remarked Andy Landers of his squad:

They are experienced basketball players. They understand the challenges and what goes into preparing for those challenges. They are willing and encourage each other to do it. There is a greater intensity, higher energy level, and greater enthusiasm. All the intangibles have gotten better. The players have improved, but the intangibles are off the chart.

Likewise, Mark Fox added of his young club:

We did lose two great players and there’s no hiding that fact. We’re a little younger than we planned on being, maybe not as mature physically or as experienced as we planned on, but there are some advantages to being young; we just have to find them. We are making some great progress. Any time that you do lose some guys prematurely, that creates new talent for you, but we are making progress. We lost some great productivity, so we are going to work to replace the points and rebounds that we lost. You can’t expect an inexperienced player to do that by himself, so it’s going to have to be by committee to start with. Experience and physical maturity is a thing you just can’t replace. You can replace talent, but the new guys are going to have to learn on the job and grow up in front of your eyes, and hopefully that will be a fun process.

The Lady Bulldogs open their season with an exhibition against West Georgia next Tuesday night in Athens, while the Georgia men get the campaign underway with an exhibition against Morehouse one week from tonight.

Electrical problems at the soccer stadium in Athens rendered a couple of banks of lights inoperable on the south side of the field, causing the Georgia women’s soccer game against Tennessee to be suspended with 24:34 left to play in the first half of a scoreless tie. The game will resume at noon Eastern tomorrow. In the meantime, your Vicki Lawrence musical allusions go here.

Despite fighting valiantly, the Georgia women’s volleyball team came up short against Alabama in Tuscaloosa, dropping the first set, 25-17, before losing the second and third sets by identical tallies of 25-22. The Crimson Tide, who are a lowly 4-9 in SEC play, led in kills (40-36), while the Bulldogs, who fell to 5-8 in conference contests, led in errors (25-13).

A weekend’s worth of competitions between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Florida Gators began well for the Red and Black when the Georgia swimming and diving teams emerged from a meet against the Gators in Gainesville with their undefeated records intact. The Lady Bulldogs ran their record to 3-0 with a 158.5-141.5 triumph over the Orange and Blue in the Stephen O’Connell Center Natatorium, while their male counterparts tied the Sunshine State Saurians, 150-150. The deadlock marked Jack Bauerle’s first draw since tying Tennessee in a women’s meet during the 1981-’82 campaign.

For reasons that were perfectly understandable, a lot of you didn’t like my prediction regarding tomorrow’s game in Jacksonville, so maybe you’ll like the fact that Year2 picked Georgia to win by seven, Bill C. picked Georgia to win by 3.7, and Dr. Saturday picked Georgia to win by three. While I don’t see the Bulldogs winning at all, I certainly can’t see the Bulldogs winning a close one. The psychology of the series simply makes it improbable that the Red and Black edge the Orange and Blue in a nailbiter. If Georgia wins this one, Georgia will win this one by more than one score, perhaps by a margin akin to the margin by which Georgia beat Steve Spurrier’s Gators in 1966.

Go ‘Dawgs!