Georgia Bulldogs Make History, Win SEC Tournament Championship

In the entire SEC regular season, the Georgia Bulldogs won a total of 4 games, going 4-12 in the league. In a four day stretch of the SEC Tournament from Thursday Mar. 13-16, the Bulldogs matched that to win the 2008 SEC Tournament. Three of the games came on the court of their arch-rivals, Georgia Tech after tornados strafed downtown Atlanta Friday night, damaging the Georgia Dome and forcing the move.

It seemed funny, the SEC Tournament being played with an "ACC" logo on the floor and few fans in the stands. The SEC limited the number of fans allowed into Alexander Memorial Coliseum, supposedly for safety concerns, but the fact is the arena seats thousands of fewer fans than the Georgia Dome.

After beating Ole Miss Thursday in overtime 97-95, the Dawgs game versus Kentucky scheduled for Friday night was postponed until Saturday at noon. In another overtime thriller, the Dawgs beat the 'Cats 60-56. Surely Georgia couldn't win two games in one day, could they? After all, coming in to the SEC Tournament, Georgia's record was 2-11 in their last thirteeen games. Amazingly, the Dawgs jumped off to a big lead early against Mississippi State and held the other SEC Bulldogs off to win the game 64-60 after trailing late in the contest.

That put the Georgia program in the SEC Tournament Championship game against Arkansas at 2:30 Sunday after the Hogs upset 4th ranked Tennessee on Saturday afternoon. Surely the Dawgs would run out of gas, wouldn't they? Wrong again, if you've ever been around a bulldog, they seemingly never run out of gas.

Jumping out to an early lead of 23-9, Georgia came out hot and the Hogs looked like the team that had played two games the day before. The Georgia lead narrowed to 10 points at the half. Arkansas' record when trailing at the half this season was 2-10 coming in. Arkansas quickly cut the lead to 6 and briefly looked like sharks who smelled blood. There is a shark known as a "razorback", not just a wild hog, by the way. Just as quickly as the Hogs cut the lead, they gave back their gains, stumbling into a stupor of turnovers, bad shot selection and fouls to fall back behind by 15.