Georgia softball's sixteenth campaign commences tonight against Army at Jack Turner Stadium at 7:00 p.m. This will be the first game of this weekend's fifth annual Red and Black Showcase, in which the Bulldogs boast an impressive 19-1 record. The rest of this weekend's opponents are:

• Utah State, Saturday at 11 a.m.,
• St. John's, Saturday at 1 p.m.,
• Campbell, Sunday at 1 p.m., and
• NC State, Sunday at 3 p.m.

The tenth ranked Bulldogs return four position starters and two pitchers from a team that finished 51-14 and advanced to the Super Regionals. Tune in to the audio broadcast at GeorgiaDogs.com to listen to the start of a campaign that could see Coach Lu Harris-Champer secure her 800th win as a collegiate head coach.

Go Dawgs!

Sometimes, there's no football. And it sucks. But if those of us here at Dawg Sports weren't driven shrieking for the hills by watching the last 2 weeks of Georgia Bulldog basketball, the 2010 Georgia Bulldog football season, or most of the Nic Cage film collection*, you can rest assured it's going to take more than a football-less Friday to bring us down. We may get a little punchy and start posting musical selections bordering on the absurdist (or which passed absurdist 3 rest stops back), but we will endure. Because we're stuck on you, loyal readers.

Maestro, if you will, the unexpected musical selection that's significantly less odd than Lawrence Welk's High Times moment or William Shatner channeling Elton John:

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Good Friday morning, Dawg fans. (Well, not "Good Friday," per se, but good morning on a Friday, which we hope will be good for you and yours, and... well, let's just move on, shall we?)

Hey, you! Have a good Friday.

There are quite a few bits of news worthy of note today. To wit:

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The latest edition of the SEC Hoops Power Poll is up over at Garnet & Black Attack and it bears unfortunate news for Bulldog basketball fans. The Fox Hounds have now fallen to dead last in the league on the um . . .strength? . . . of recent losses to Ole Miss and Auburn amidst a four game slide.

Remember that the voting for this week's edition of the poll closed on Monday night, before whatever that was that happened at the Stege last night. And while it remains to be seen whether that was the beginnng of a turnaround or a mere aberration, the fact remains that the Hoop 'Dawgs are a gosh-awful 2-7 in conference play. I'm frustrated about it. You're frustrated about it. Mark Fox is frustrated about it. But (he said, filling his tired cliche quota for the post) it is what it is right now.

Further up the ladder, there appears to be no question that the Kentucky Wildcats are the class of the conference. They've beaten all comers enroute to a 24-1 overall record, a pristine 10-0 conference ledger and a #1 national ranking. If anyone believes there's a better team in college basketball right now I would love to hear that person's argument. I would then dismiss it as the ramblings of a mad man or the delusions of an Ohio State fan.

Florida's only fault at this point is that they're not Kentucky. Assuming a strong finish to the conference slate, a good performance in the SEC tournament, and a slip by one or two other squads, the Gators are a decent bet for a top seed in the NCAA tournament, and should be no worse than a #3 barring some sort of collapse.

Speaking of the tournament, SB Nation's own Blogging The Bracket currently has 5 SEC teams making it into the field: Kentucky, Florida, Mississippi State, Vandy and Alabama. I can't really quibble with that, as there appears to be a large gulf between those teams and the Ole Misses and Arkansases* of the world. It's just not a very deep conference this year, which can largely be chalked up to the likes of Georgia and Arkansas rebuilding and acclimating to new systems. It's just one of those seasons.

Until later . . .

Go 'Dawgs!

*The next time I pluralize "Arkansas" will be the second time. So cut me some slack here.

Huge game for Razorbacks tonight at Georgia. Must-win. Period.
Josh Bertaccini (February 8, 2012)

On a Wednesday evening that featured some top-tier college basketball around the country, Mark Fox’s Georgia Bulldogs limped into their home date with an Arkansas Razorbacks squad that had yet to card the season’s first road win. Everything about what followed was shocking, as the Classic City Canines carded an 81-59 triumph. No, seriously.

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Well, here we go again. Mark Fox's Georgia Bulldogs will be hosting the Arkansas Razorbacks in Stegeman Coliseum at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on the SEC Network. Should you be so inclined, you may track (though not watch) the game here.

The Hogs are an enigmatic team, having in the last two and a half weeks beaten the Michigan Wolverines and the Vanderbilt Commodores while losing to the Alabama Crimson Tide and the LSU Tigers. Arkansas, which is still looking for its first win of the season on an opponent's home court, travels to Athens hoping to unleash "40 minutes of Hell," in honor of the roundball strategy, biography, and documentary of the same name, all of which are discussed in a recent podcast at Arkansas Expats, SB Nation's Razorbacks weblog and, I believe, the only blog in the network with "sex" in the URL.

If you can stomach another evening of Georgia men's basketball---and, honestly, at this point, no one would fault you if you couldn't---please join in the conversation in the comments below.

Go 'Dawgs!

As you undoubtedly noticed, Dawg Sports suffered a brief outage this morning, which, unfortunately, was not the first such outage in recent weeks. I would like to apologize to the site’s many loyal readers for our temporary inability to provide you with the thorough and reliable Georgia athletics coverage you have come to expect and we are committed to delivering. The outage was brief, but it affected many of the sites within the SB Nation network. Please be assured that our technical support team is working hard to correct these problems and to make sure such outages don't occur again.

I'd also like to apologize for the fact that, if such an outage had to occur today, it didn't occur during tonight's Georgia-Arkansas basketball game. Dawg Sports is concerned about your well-being and would have welcomed an interruption of service that excused us from watching another disheartening men’s basketball loss.

Hang in there, everyone. We’re all on the job; just bear with us. If necessary, feel free to blame Mike Bobo.

Go ‘Dawgs!

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