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Season off to fast, frantic start
Posted: Monday November 29, 1999 01:33 PM
Andy Landers, a three-time National Coach of the Year, is in his 21st season at Georgia. Landers has averaged 24.3 wins a year, third-best among all active Division I coaches with as much tenure. The Lady Bulldogs are one of only four teams to reach the NCAA Final Four five times. Georgia returns four starters from last year's Final Four team that went 27-7, and is ranked No. 1 in SI for Women's college basketball preview. Check out Landers' diary every other week on CNNSI.com.
November 29, 1999, The season has begun and our basketball team has already played six games in a 10-day span. The preseason WNIT was both a challenging and rewarding experience for our team. Part of the challenge was playing three quality Top 20 opponents on the road. The second part of the challenge was playing the four games in an eight-day period. While our team played well in wins over UAB, Virginia Tech and Boston College, we definitely played our best in the championship game against a very good University of California at Santa Barbara team. I was quite pleased with the total effort our team gave. As great a challenge as the games were, we found it equally difficult to get back to Athens after the Championship game on Monday night. We chartered a plane in order to get our players back in the early morning hours so that they could attend class on Tuesday. The biggest concern I have with playing on the road isn't the competitive environment we often encounter, but rather our student-athletes missing classes. As the charter plane left Champaign, we were informed there was dense fog in Athens and we would have to land in Atlanta. This was obviously the wise thing to do; however, it provided problems from a ground transportation standpoint, and by the time we got in to Athens the next morning it was 6:00. Our team attended classes, but man did I ever feel for them. The price they paid to play can be told in a number of different ways, and certainly the sacrifice they made on Tuesday was a difficult one. Because of the strain of playing four games in the WNIT, we took Tuesday off. Wednesday we practiced in the morning, as classes at Georgia recessed beginning Wednesday for the Thanksgiving holidays. Shortly after practice we headed back to the airport to fly into Maine for the University of Maine's Dead River Classic. Each of the four teams which comprised the tournament field was included in the NCAA Tournament last year, so we expected a very competitive event. It boiled down to us and Maine in the Championship game. It was a great atmosphere for women's basketball, and our players responded to the challenge by winning an overtime game against a very good Maine squad. I think by season's end Maine could have one of the 10 best post games in the country. They have two quality players inside in Jamie Cassidy and Martina Tinkalova. I am quite certain they will do well in their conference. Our team will probably be the most experienced road team in America by Christmas, as we hit the road again Tuesday with Georgia Southern, and then to Houston this weekend. Such are the challenges we have this year. Looking for practice timeI have been quite pleased with the development of our basketball team in game situations. We seem to have the composure toward the end that is needed to win close games. While we have been able to improve in different areas in each game, we have done so without the benefit of any quality practice time since the season began. When you play on the road, often times it takes a day to get to the game, a day to play the game, and a day to get home, and when the games are coming at you as quickly as these games have been coming, one can see there is no real time to practice. I am anxious to get three or four days of practice in, so that we can address some of the areas we need to improve in. When this is done I am certain our basketball team will be even better. It has been interesting thus far to watch the scores of some of the other teams. The Southeastern Conference is off to a great start with an overall record of 41-8. Mississippi State has the biggest upset of the year under its belt, as they knocked off Louisiana Tech in their season opener. Don't doubt for a minute that Mississippi State is a quality team, and people had better believe that visiting Starkville isn't a piece of cake. I was proud of Coach Mattox and the way that Kentucky played Connecticut. The score in that game further illustrates how some of the teams in the Southeastern Conference continue to improve. While I am anxious to play our December schedule, I am really looking forward to getting into the Conference. Speaking of the Conference, we actually have our first Conference game on Thursday of this week against LSU. I thought before the season started that LSU would contend for the Conference Championship; unfortunately they lost their starting point guard in an exhibition game. While this will affect them, only time will tell how important she was to their basketball team. -- Coach Landers
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