DULUTH, Ga. — Hope is a good thing, if you believe the signature line from “The Shawshank Redemption.”
But hopefulness is a terrible thing, if you believe a coach whose team feels that way in March.
That’s how Georgia players described their mood after suffering a 67-48 loss to No. 1 seed South Carolina Friday in the SEC Tournament quarterfinals.
The loss left the Lady Bulldogs at 20-11 on the season, after they went 7-9 in the SEC. More importantly, their NCAA tournament hopes were left dangling.
“Hopefulness is what you feel when you don’t take care of business,” Georgia coach Andy Landers said. “We didn’t do that so now we are hopeful. And hopeful is where you don’t want to be day in and day out.”
Georgia has quite a bit of company as it waits until March 17 to find out whether the program will continue an NCAA Tournament appearance streak that dates back to 1994.
That year, Landers mused, “most of our team wasn’t born.”
With an RPI in the 30s and good wins over Kentucky, LSU, Vanderbilt (twice) and Georgia Tech, Georgia has a good case to make. But some of those teams are also bubble-dwellers, and tack on bad losses to Mississippi State, Missouri and Alabama — none of which are NCAA-bound — and there’s some legitimate worry.
“I think we should be in,” Landers said. “Are we one of the 64 best teams in the country? Absolutely. Are we in unfamiliar territory? Yes.”
You can add Florida to the list of SEC bubble teams, along with Vandy and LSU. Just from a quick look at the basic NCAA selection sheet numbers, there appears to be a growing pile of teams whose good wins/bad losses breakdown ought to give the committee fits.
Rutgers, Florida State, Oklahoma, Minnesota, USC, Villanova and Creighton look to be on similar turf from the power conferences.
But realignment has weakened some of the best mid-major leagues. The Atlantic 10, Colonial, Missouri Valley and Mountain West — which have enjoyed multiple-bid seasons in recent years — may send only one team unless there are “wrong winners” in conference tournaments.
These are matters that players and coaches can only wait and watch for helplessly, especially after an early elimination in a conference tournament.
Landers fretted that his team made “the same mistakes” against South Carolina Friday as it did in an 11-point loss last week to the Gamecocks, as they clinched their first SEC regular season championship.
The Lady Dogs didn’t contain Carolina in transition, didn’t get back on defense, couldn’t pick up shooters. Tiffany Mitchell, Carolina’s SEC Player of the Year, freely drove the lane, although she was rather quiet, hitting only 4-for-10 and scoring 11 points.
Georgia shot poorly — only 26 percent for the game — and had no answer for Ibiam Elem and Alaina Coates, coach Dawn Staley’s imposing inside tandem, who combined for 25 points.
The fourth-ranked Gamecocks (27-3) also were energized in their first game after falling to Tennessee in the regular season finale last weekend. This is a team that’s a likely No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament, as well as a Final Four contender.
While Landers gave them props — “they were terrific, they did what they wanted to do” — he’s chagrined that his team didn’t “take the hope out of the hands of those who will decide.”
