UGA Women’s Basketball: No. 13 Georgia Closes Non-Conference Slate

 

• Georgia is back at Stegeman Coliseum for its final non-conference game of the year. The Lady Bulldogs host South Alabama at noon ET on SEC Network +. Jeff Dantzler will call the action on the Georgia Bulldog Sports Network.
• The Lady Bulldogs defeated St. Francis, 82-45, on Sunday. It marked the sixth time this season Georgia has held an opponent below 50 points.
• This is the fifth all-time meeting between these programs. Georgia owns a 4-0 lead in the series, with the last contest coming in 1991 — a 77-61 Georgia victory.
• The Lady Bulldogs moved up four spots to No. 13 in the latest Associated Press top-25. The USAToday/WBCA Coaches Poll will be released on Tuesday.
• Georgia has two wins against teams ranked in the top-12 of the latest NET rankings (No. 3 NC State and No. 12 Notre Dame).
• The Lady Bulldogs’ 82-80 overtime victory against NC State last Thursday marked Georgia’s first true road win against a top-2 team in program history.
• It was, however, Georgia’s second victory against a top-2 team in the last year. The Lady Bulldogs also defeated No. 2 Texas A&M this past March in the SEC tournament semifinals.
• Steady Staiti has scored in double figures in three-straight games and for the 41st time in 48 games. Staiti proved once again why she is one of the best centers in the country, recording a double-double of 21 points and 11 boards against Preseason ACC Player of the Year and 2021 All-American Elissa Cunane of NC State.
• Staiti was named the ESPN National Player of the Week for her efforts in the last two games. In addition to her performance against NC State, she went 7-of-8 from the field and scored 16 points against St. Francis.
• As a team, Georgia leads the SEC in 3-point field-goal percentage defense and is top-5 in scoring defense (51.5 ppg), blocks (7.0 per game), field-goal percentage defense (34 percent) and turnovers forced (19.9 per game).
• Georgia dished out 28 assists on 34 made field goals against St. Francis. The Lady Bulldogs lead the SEC in total assists (192) and are second in assists per game (17.5).

Georgia has now won 18 of its last 22 games dating back to last season. During the stretch going back to Feb. 4, 2021, Georgia has defeated five ranked teams, including No. 2 ranked Texas A&M and second-ranked NC State.

Sarah Ashlee Barker nailed a 25-foot heave at the buzzer to send the game against NC State into overtime. Barker finished with a career-best four 3-point field goals in the win, including back-to-back three’s late in the game to stop a NC State rally.

Barker has drastically improved her shooting from behind the arc throughout the course of the season. In the first four games, she hit just 2-of-14 (.143) from behind the arc, but has knocked in 16-of-36 (.440) over the last seven contests.

Que Morrison is making a name for herself as arguably the best all around player in the SEC. Morrison is doing it all. She ranks in the top-5 of the league in assist-turnover ratio (2.6), assists (4.5 per game) and free-throw percentage (83.8 percent) and is seventh in steals (2.7 per game). Morrison has scored 20 points twice this season after doing that just three times in the previous four years.

Georgia improved to an impressive 9-2 overall in overtime games under head coach Joni Taylor. In fact, Georgia has won four-straight and nine of its last 10 OT contests.

Georgia’s bench has outscored its opponents by a 293-127 margin, an average of 11.5 points per game, this season. Every available player has touched the floor in five of the team’s 11 games overall.

The Lady Bulldogs set a new school record with 18 blocks in the win against Alabama State on Nov. 21. That total broke a 34-year old record from 1987, when Georgia had 16 against Mercer. The Lady Bulldogs’ 18 swats are tied for the second-most in a game in SEC history.

In addition to leading or being near the top of the SEC in nearly every defensive category, Georgia has allowed just two opponents (Texas Tech and NC State) to hit over 40 percent from the floor. The Lady Bulldogs have also forced 20 or more turnovers six times.

Georgia’s 2022 Signing Class is ranked No. 7 nationally according to ESPN. Janiah Barker and Sydney Bowles, two of the highest rated players in the nation, will join talented point guard product Tineya Hylton in Georgia’s incoming class.

Barker – who is considered the No.1-ranked forward nationally and among the top-3 players overall — is a native of Marietta, Ga. She currently preps at Montverde Academy in Florida. Bowles – a consensus top-10 guard prospect — is from Lithonia, Ga., and plays at Woodward Academy. They will begin their collegiate careers during the 2022-23 campaign.

Hylton prepped at Hamilton Heights Christian Academy in Chattanooga, Tenn., before going back to Canada to play at Royal Crown Academic School in Toronto, Ontario. She will join the Lady Bulldogs this season.

Jenna Staiti now ranks fifth in school history with 232 career blocks. Tawana McDonald owns the program record with 297 swats during her time at Georgia. Staiti is also the SEC’s active career leader in blocks.

Head Coach Joni Taylor and her staff implemented a new offensive philosophy prior to the 2020-21 season with the goal of playing a more up-tempo style with defensive pressure.

That move has paid dividends. Since last season, Georgia has scored over 90 points four times. The Lady Bulldogs scored over 90 points just four times combined in the five seasons prior.

Coach Taylor’s teams have lived by the mantra ‘It’s not where you start but where you finish.’ In five of her first six seasons, the Lady Bulldogs have finished well ahead of their preseason ranking. The largest jumps came in 2017-18 — when Georgia was picked eighth and finished second — and last season — when the team was picked ninth and finished fourth.

Georgia’s SEC Standings Under Joni Taylor

Georgia’s SEC Standings Under Joni Taylor
Season	Preseason Rank	SEC Finish
2015-16	9th	6th
2016-17	12th	8th
2017-18	8th	2nd (tied)
2018-19	4th	7th
2019-20	10th	9th
2020-21	9th	4th

Jenna Staiti has become known as ‘Steady Staiti’ over the last two seasons — and for good reason.

The Cumming, Ga., native has scored in double figures in 41 of her last 48 games with 16 double-doubles and ten 20-plus point efforts. It is a remarkable stat line for the All-SEC center, especially when you look back to her first two years of college basketball. During her freshman and sophomore campaigns, Staiti averaged 4.4 ppg and 1.7 rpg in 65 total games played.

Georgia has become one of the top defensive teams in the SEC during Coach Taylor’s tenure. In her six seasons leading the program, the Lady Bulldogs have finished either first or second in the conference in scoring defense on three occasions, including a league-best and school record 54.1 ppg in 2015-16. Last year, Georgia ranked second in the SEC, holding opponents to 60.5 ppg. The team also finished top-5 in most defensive categories, including field-goal percentage defense, 3-point field-goal percentage defense and turnovers forced.

Que Morrison is known as one of the top defenders in the nation as she routinely guards the opponent’s top player night-in and night-out. Last year, Morrison led all players in conference play with 33 steals (2.2 per game).

The Riverdale, Ga., native has also stepped it up offensively. She has now scored in double figures in 20 of her last 24 games dating back to last season.

After suffering a string of injuries in her career, Morrison finally experienced a full healthy season for the Lady Bulldogs.

Here is a look back at some of the adversity Morrison has overcome.

The defensive stopper placed on the SEC All-Freshman Team after drawing 32 starts on Georgia’s NCAA tournament team. Then, in her sophomore campaign, Morrison missed the first eight games due to a torn meniscus in her left knee. In 2019-20, she had an injury to her foot before the year began. She then suffered a torn labrum in her right shoulder to end her junior campaign midway through SEC play.

Mikayla Coombs — a native of Buford, Ga. — was selected by her peers to serve as the vice chair of the SEC Women’s Basketball Leadership Council. As one of four elected officers, she will participate in various meetings throughout the year to provide feedback to Athletics Directors, Senior Woman Administrators and Faculty Athletics Representatives.

This news came after she was chosen as the only student-athlete representative on the NCAA competition committee. Coombs graduated with a degree in sport management from the University of Georgia and is currently pursuing a master’s in the same program. She was named a UGA Presidential Scholar in 2020, has placed on the Athletic Director’s Honor Roll three times and made the Dean’s List in 2021.

Georgia has one of the longest tenured staffs in the SEC. With the return of Karen Lange, Chelsea Newton and Robert Mosley, Georgia is the only team in the conference to not have a single coaching change at any level — head coach or assistant coach — over the past six years.

Junior guard Chloe Chapman played two seasons with the Georgia soccer team, but after spending two years as a dual-sport athlete, she will now focus on just basketball. The Mitchellville, Md., native was a consensus top-40 prospect and was rated as the No. 8 overall point guard in the nation coming out of high school.

Lady Bulldog freshmen Reigan Richardson and Jillian Hollingshead were both named McDonald’s All-Americans, marking the first time in Georgia history the program has signed two McDonald’s All-Americans in one class. Hollingshead and Richardson are the 11th and 12th McDonald’s All-Americans to sign with the Lady Bulldogs and are the first to commit right out high school since Ronika Ransford in 2010. Current Lady Bulldog Mikayla Coombs was a McDonald’s All-American in 2017.

Georgia is one of just two SEC programs (Tennessee) and one of just 16 teams nationwide to reach the 1,000 win total. The Lady Bulldogs accomplished the feat last season on the road at East Carolina, marking the latest impressive accomplishment for the storied program.

The Lady Bulldogs are one of only three teams, joining Wisconsin-Green Bay and Tennessee, to have a winning record every year since 1980 and have been to 34 of 39 NCAA tournaments.