Sports

I'm 100% positive these guys could beat Georgia right now.

Its a drizzly and dreary afternoon here in Athens, Georgia, where the weather is very reflective of the way the local nine have been playing as of late.

Georgia comes into their weekend series on the backs of a five-game losing streak. The Dawgs have been outscored 61-11 over that stretch and hit a new low with a 11-1 loss against Kennesaw State here at Foley Field.

I’m Kirk Carter and I’ll be live blogging tonight’s game and Sunday’s contest against the Saints. In other words, I’ll be combining the boredom of a baseball game with the pain of having to read.

As I mentioned, Georgia comes into this game losers of their last five games. There might not be a team in the country that looks as bad as Georgia does right now.

Coach Perno has tried to shake a few things up, starting tonight will be Michael Palazzone a sophomore out of Marietta. Palazzone has normally thrown out of the Sunday slot, but an illness to typical Friday starter Justin Grimm has thrust the righty into Friday night’s matchup. Grimm will move back to Saturday and senior Jeff Walters will pitch the final game of the series on Sunday.

Sophomore Levi Hyams will mark his first start of the season at shortstop tonight. Hyams saw his first action of the year as a late inning sub against Kennesaw. He’s finally recovered from a back injury.

Georgia will still be without starting shortstop Kyle Farmer for another weak or so. Farmer underwent successful surgery on his left wrist earlier this week. Until then, Georgia will continue to miss a guy that Coach Perno has pointed to as a potential leader for this directionless club.

No word on Chase Davidson, who missed the Kennesaw game with a sprained ankle. He’s not in the lineup tonight, but he’s expected to see action this weekend.

STARTING LINEUPS AND ALL THE ACTION AFTER THE BREAK. (more…)

The Kentucky Wildcats had quite a scare in their first round match up against Alabama. The second ranked team in the nation was down by as much as 11 in the first half and out rebounded throughout the game 45-33. However it came down to making key shots and no one is better than the freshmen phenom John Wall. With a team high 23 points and 5 assists Wall took over for the Cats in the second half making plays by driving to the basket and dishing the ball to his teammates. Kentucky head coach John Calipari stated after the game, “The last five games we’ve gotten out rebounded. And again, what I think has happened in all five of those games…the other teams outworked us”. 
While they were outworkedThe key to their victory was going 50% from the field and out scoring the Crimson Tide 46-26 from inside the paint. Alabama shot a weak 34.8% from the field but had a stellar performance off the bench from JaMychal Green who scored 14 points and had 11 rebounds.  
Up next for Kentucky is the winner of the Tennesse -Ole Miss match up which is currently shaping up to be a close one. Earlier in the day I predicted Ole Miss to win so we’ll see if that holds.
Looking ahead Coach Calipari mentioned that in the rest of this tournament and in the next one his team of 19 and 20 year olds needs to want it more in order to win. Will this young team be hungry for more or fall short? It’s certainly clear that this SEC Tournament is Kentucky’s to lose and they will have a much tougher task come NCAA tourney time. I wouldn’t call them a lock to win it all but they have the talent to make a deep run in the tourney. In fact I don’t believe that there is a clear consensus lock this year. It’s madness time and anything can happen. Got to love this time of year.

From beyond the arc

Bowman

I was all set to live blog the UGA vs  Arkansas game tonight from the Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tennessee but I had some technical difficulties. For some reason my pc dislikes me or maybe it was bad luck but I kept getting kicked off the internet inside the Arena. In the media work room things worked fine. Such is life.
Since the Bulldogs beat the Razorbacks tonight 77-64 they will face Vanderbilt tomorrow(well tonight actually) at 9:45ET I will attempt to live blog it but I’m not sure if things will work out.  I’m going to have a chat with the IT guys before tip off to see if I can get things fixed.
Enough of that though, let’s discuss the win over Arkansas. In the battle of Dawgs vs Hogs, Georgia got ahead quick and it stayed that way for the remainder of the game. Arkansas’ last lead was 4-2 with 18:56 left in the first half. Georgia held a solid lead for most of the first half until around 3:05 left to go when Arkansas got within one point. McPhee hit a very deep three  as the buzzer sounded and Georgia had an 8 point lead 40-32.
The Bulldogs struggled to hit shots in the second half but unlike the last time they played Arkansas they were able to maintain the lead throughout by crashing the boards and out rebounding the Razorbacks 45-28. 17 of those rebounds coming on the offensive end. The refs were very foul happy in this game calling a total of 50 fouls, 25 a piece for each team.  Albert Jackson fouled out for the Dawgs while Trey Thompkins and Jeremy Price had 4 fouls. Georgia was 69.2% from the free throw line and 46.6% from the field; one area the Dawgs will need to improve on before they face the Commodores Friday night.
So what needs to happen for Georgia to continue it’s success? They need to rest. The foul happy refs led to a lot of minutes played. So rest up and be ready to battle it out against a team that is scared to play you. Every team should be afraid to play these Bulldogs. They’re a team with nothing to lose. A team that didn’t the greatest of seasons going 0-11 on the road and finishing last place in the SEC East. However they’re a team that fights and will play hard. And if you fall asleep and let your guard down these Bulldogs will bite at the chance to take the lead. It certainly showed tonight as they came out on fire and ready to go. The difference in this game was being able to finish the drill. Which is another thing the Bulldogs will need to do if they’re looking for a repeat of the miraculous 2008 SEC Tournament run. There have been so many games this year where Georgia hung in there but just couldn’t finish. They closed it out tonight but the question is, will it continue this weekend? We shall see. Georgia had a decent crowd turnout, but nothing compaired to that of Kentucky, and they didn’t even play today. It was like a sea of blue in some areas of the arena. But I have faith that Mark Fox can get fans excited about Georgia Basketball. Winning certainly is the way to do it, and under his coaching Georgia Basketball will continue to get better.
Thomas Wilson and I will be at Bridgestone Arena this weekend for as long as the Bulldogs keep winning. Big thanks to Thomas for getting the media passes courtesy of our weekly news show, UGA Newsource. Which airs on WNEG(channel 6 on Charter) at 7:30, Monday-Thursday.

Our view:

Until next time,

Eric Bowman