February 27, 1999
By BRIAN MAHONEY
AP MegaSports Writer
A little belief is taking Kentucky a long way in the Southeastern Conferencetournament.
The Wildcats (20-9) will look for another surprise Friday in Chattanooga,Tenn., when they face No. 14 Georgia (22-5) in a matchup of teams that havebeen absent from the semifinals recently.
Kentucky advanced there for the first time since 1992 by upsetting17th-ranked and second-seeded Louisiana State, 81-71, on Friday.
“I guess our motto is If you don’t believe it, nobody else will’,” saidKentucky coach Bernadette Mattox.
Shantia Owens and Laura Meadows each scored 20 points for the Wildcats, whohave almost certainly locked up an NCAA tournament berth with their play at theend of the season. Kentucky, the seventh seed, has won four straight games.
In Friday’s last quarterfinal game, the third-seeded Lady Bulldogs endedtheir string of SEC tourney frustrations by ousting Mississippi State, 72-66.Georgia, a three-time champion and a runner-up on three other occasions, haddropped its quarterfinal game three straight seasons.
The Lady Bulldogs are still trying to recapture the form on offense they hadearlier in the year, whey they won their first 14 games. They showed signs ofthat during the second half of Thursday’s win, when they settled down anderased an 11-point deficit.
“We’d gotten to the point of desperation mark,” said Georgia coach AndyLanders. “Two or three times in a row, I tried to drill it into my players’heads how impatient we were being offensively. … Then finally we settled downand began to pass the basketball.”
The teams are meeting for the second time this season. Kentucky upsetGeorgia 80-76 on Feb. 7, a win that Mattox says was important to her team’sgrowth.
“We were coming out on the short end (of games), and our team grew fromthat and matured from that,” she said. “From that point on, other than acouple of other losses, we’ve really come on and matured.”
The winner advances to Sunday’s final to face either top-seeded Tennessee orfifth-seeded Alabama.
