What’s wrong with the Lady Bulldogs? Searching for answers as frustrations mount in loss
Six seconds remained on the clock when Joni Taylor glanced upward at the scoreboard. Her eyes then quickly shifted direction and her head draped low while calling a timeout.
Vanderbilt 63, Georgia 55. A final score to give the Lady Bulldogs consecutive losses, and their latest unfolded in disastrous fashion.
Georgia (10-6, 1-2 SEC) players moped over toward the huddle. Taylor motioned for them to move faster, but to no avail. Taylor stayed quiet for a few seconds and allowed others to talk in search of a way to fathom such a result. All the Lady Bulldogs’ head coach could do was shake her head in disbelief.
Freshman Javyn Nicholson raised her arm to break the huddle with traditional enthusiasm, but none of her teammates joined along. They couldn’t believe they played with such lethargy. Or maybe they should’ve.
“We played how we practiced the last two days, so there’s consistency,” Taylor said, who sat in front of the microphone with a dejected demeanor. “We’ve told them the last two days what a shame it would be to not take care of business at home because we’re not focused.”
A sequence of puzzling fourth-quarter plays and poor body language illustrated the state of Georgia’s season as 13 games remain in SEC play.
Jenna Staiti, the biggest player on the floor at 6-foot-6, stood in front of the basket and missed a wide-open layup opportunity. Nicholson later rebounded for Staiti’s putback, but it illustrates a maddening trend. Georgia missed 13 layups in the loss, and Taylor said “you can’t win in this league” with such a large number of those miscues.
One possession later, Que Morrison stood on the perimeter, Taylor yelled for action and the wing player eventually drove toward the paint. Morrison threw up an awkward floater which barely hit the rim. Vanderbilt rebounded and Taylor crossed her arms.
On the final inbounds play, a pass deflected off of freshman guard Chloe Chapman’s fingers as time expired. Georgia has had a turnover, in fitting fashion, on its final play in consecutive games.
These events occurred after Georgia went on one of its driest spells this season. Vanderbilt erupted with a 32-12 run over a 13:02 stretch of play (nearly a quarter-and-a-half), and that forced the Lady Bulldogs into their insurmountable hole. Junior Maya Caldwell said Georgia got “too comfortable” with the circumstances and allowed the Commodores to go on a spurt that the Lady Bulldogs couldn’t find a solution for.
Once teams returned to Stegeman Coliseum’s underbelly, emotions contrasted each other a mere 100-foot shot down the hallway. A Vanderbilt staffer could be heard yelling “Let’s go” along with a few more colorful statements in celebration. Another assistant sat outside the coaches’ locker room while a colleague gave enthusiastic high-fives as she was glued to FaceTime while saying “That was a big one.”
On Georgia’s end, slow and nearly-mute footsteps were the only sounds heard. Players struggled to find the right words. Staiti stared into space while repeatedly popping her mouthpiece up and down. Taylor skated her water bottle from palm to palm as she looked toward a lifeless podium in embarrassment.
“This can happen every night if we come in with our heads like this,” Staiti said. “We need to come together as a team and figure out what’s got minds wandering.”
Georgia’s sputtering defeat came four days after nearly pulling off an upset of No. 14 Mississippi State. The Lady Bulldogs played well, looked like an improved team and primed for a solid finish in a league with a deep haul of talented teams. Georgia lost to a championship-caliber program by seven points and confidence outweighed sadness.
A mentality of improvement permeated throughout the team locker room. In some ways, it’s justified with the improved play of Chapman, Morrison and Nicholson. But Georgia also had 23 turnovers, had 20 less shots and could only gather one offensive rebound against Mississippi State.
Taylor challenged her team’s mindset to not be satisfied. But she began to see overconfidence, and she thought her players walked away happy with close defeat.
“We didn’t win Sunday,” Taylor said. “Last time I checked, we lost. What are we confident about? It’s the mindset of young adults. We didn’t practice like a team that had just lost a game. We practiced like a team that played a good team close and were OK with that. It’s not acceptable.”
Regardless of the opponent, the same issues have plagued Georgia en route to a six-loss record. Turnovers continue to plague the team (Caldwell couldn’t stop herself from adding “once again” when indicating the issue). Those dreaded layups do, too, along with minor details that Taylor thinks separate good teams from great ones.
Staiti said repetitiveness of the miscues “gets old” and calls for her teammates to have greater attentiveness inside the practice gym to improve them. Three of the Lady Bulldogs’ losses have come to top-15 programs while the others are to unranked foes.
“There’s nothing difficult about scoring a layup,” Taylor said prior to Tuesday’s practice. “That’s a lack of concentration and focus. Either you aren’t getting your eyes on the rim soon enough, or you’re looking at something else. Layups are layups, and in possession games, those points matter.”
Georgia finds itself in a tough spot. There are plenty of reasons for concern, and a pattern of vital mistakes has been created. From here out, the schedule is rather unforgiving, too. The Lady Bulldogs play five ranked opponents in their next six contests (three of four against top-20 teams on the road) in a stretch that concludes on Feb. 3 at Mississippi State.
Taylor pleads for a player to separate herself from the pack. Georgia can’t find a consistent rotation and needs to hear “This is my spot and I’m bringing everyone with me,” Taylor said.
The desired result is to no longer have a dreaded glance at a losing, spiritless final score.
“What do we want to look like? What type of legacy do we want to leave?” Taylor said. “There are going to be games you don’t win, but it shouldn’t be because we don’t play to the standard we’re capable of.”