The 4th seeded Lady Dogs (22-9) saw their season come to a close Sunday in Tallahassee, upset 76-70 by 13th seed Marist.
There has been a 13 over a 4 seed 9 times historically in the Women's NCAA Tournament. Marist now has 3 of those times. I'm not gonna lie and act like I watched more than the last few seconds, where the Lady Dogs nailed a last second 3 to make the score look a little more respectable. I was trying to ween myself off that EPL problem with a little FA Cup action (#YNWA). But the Lady Dogs had injury issues all season long, leading long time head coach Andy Landers to often play with little to no contributions from his bench. I had felt this would catch up to them this weekend, but not until Tuesday when they played the 5 seed. Upsets are extremely rare in the Women's NCAA Tourney, but it appears Marist makes them their specialty. The announcers were mentioning in the closing seconds how this wasn't much of a surprise, because of how good Marist is and not Georgia's problems. But the end of the Lady Dogs season was extremely disappointing for all involved, bowing out in their first game of both the NCAA Tournament and the SEC Tournament (against South Carolina).
Andy Landers only graduates one player, senior G Meredith Mitchell, so while his great history will lead to a lot of leeway on when he decides to call it a career, expect a few #fire comments below. And those will just get worse if things don't go a lot better next year with a big group of 8 seniors, including talented players Anne Marie Armstrong, Jasmine Hassell, and Jasmine James.