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This per Seth Emersons blog, which I will also link, Jonathan Taylor will have neck surgery later today. Certainly a scary surgery and at this point I have no idea what this means for his baseball career, I simply don't have enough of the details but obviously if we were talking football, about a 99% chance the career is over. Just a tough thing for the Ga baseball team, obviously very tough on this young kid who had a great future ahead of him playing the sport. Of course Chance Veazey is the baseball player last year that was seriously injured in a scooter crash and is paralized from the waist down.
http://dawg-extra.blogspot.com/
As I mentioned in my blog earlier, of course the Dogs results in the SEC tourney are huge in regards to whether they get an invite to the NCAA tourney but just as important is watching some of the smaller conference tourney's and who wins those bids. Seth covers all that in his blog and plans to keep the list updated so please check his site for some valuable information, I know I sure do. We need to root for some teams to lose early in their conference tourney's-for example, it would be great if Old Dominion beats VCU tonight. Great if Providence beats Marquette on Tuesday, Iowa State beats Colorado on Wed, Oklahoma beats Baylor on Wed, Wake beat BC on Thursday (this is very unlikely) Arkansas beats UT on Thu, GT beats VT-although I think VT beating Duke still probably gets them in.
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First of all, while the baseball team did play a very competitive series against the #5 team in the country, FSU, still they managed to lose another series at home. All games were close and we did manage to give FSU their first loss of the season so that is encouraging. I truly have to believe, playing the top level competition this early in the season can only help this team as the season progresses. Jonathan Taylor and Zach Cone had a serious collision in the 3rd innning of the game yesterday, Taylor had to be carted off and taken to St. Mary's hospital with a neck injury, Cone walked off the field but did not return to the game. This week, the Dogs take on Mercer in Macon and Alabama at Coolray Field in Gwinnett before heading to Los Angeles for three games, one against UCLA, one against USC and one against Saint Mary's. SEC slate begins (Bama game does not count in SEC conference record) weekend of March 18th as we head to Columbia to play the defending national champs. Here is an article to read about the baseball team and more specifically the horrible accident involving our LF and CF-let's just hope and pray Jonathan Taylor will make a full recovery.
http://dogbytesonline.com/taylors-injury-could-mean-more-tragedy-43122/
The Lady Dogs went 1-1 in the SEC tourney. First they beat South Carolina 66-34, then got crushed yet again by the Lady Vols, 82-58. They finish with a 21-10 record and should easily make the women's tournament. I don't expect them to make it beyond the sweet 16 if that far but this is a pretty young team at least.
As for the mens team, well, what can you say. A very unproductive day over in Alabama. The Dogs could have picked up a 10th win and locked up the third seed, as UF handled Vandy. Instead they end up tied with Vandy for third but due to head to head losses, they get the 4th seed from the east which means a first round match with a dangerous Auburn team. First, lets talk about the Bama game. Plain and simple, we have a big size advantage over Bama and got their bigs in foul trouble. STILL, we seemed reluctant to go inside, we had way too many turnovers, and to be the biggest difference in the game, Charvez Davis hit 5 threes. I expected JaMychal Green to have a good game because he is the Crimson Tides best player. But Davis, only averaging 8 pts a game, and had made only 1 of his last 16 threes I think is what I heard watching the game on TV, just killed us. We doubled Bama in turnovers and although Trey had a double-double, very disappointing game from our two big seniors, they combined for 6 points and 5 rebounds. Matter of fact, if you look at Chris Barnes stats from this game, well, NOTHING. 14 minutes played, zero points, zero rebounds, one block shot. Jeremy played 31 minutes, got 6 points, 5 rebounds-he got 4 of his 6 points from the free throw line. Connor Nolte played 2 minutes, contributed 2 points and a rebound.
We get Auburn at 1pm to tip off the SEC tourney at the Ga. Dome. Auburn is a team we struggled to beat in Athens, winning in OT 81-72. Jeremy Price had a MONSTER game there, with 22 points and 14 rebounds. Earnest Ross lead AU with 30pts, I think if you look at the reason that game when to OT, turnovers-17 for us, 9 for AU. Simply put, we have a veteran team and this is cruch time, our guys better do a much better job in this area or we will lose early in the SEC tourney. AU should NOT beat us but there is no doubt they have played much better basketball down the stretch. If you look at their season since they played us which was obviously a struggle for us, they beat Miss State-the #2 seed in the west. They then had an ugly loss at Ole Miss followed by a bad home loss to Vandy. But look after that, they loss at Bama by 2 on a last second tip in-an UGLY game to watch but one AU had in their pocket but thanks to some bad play on their part and some VERY questionable officiating, they managed to lose. They lost to Arkansas at home by 2, then closed the season by beating Ole Miss at home and LSU on the road. Point being, I think AU is a team we MUST take control of early and not let it get close. They have nothing to lose, we sure do. IF we get past AU in round one, guess who waits us for round 2, Alabama. Most, including me, seem to believe that our head to head loss to Bama this past weekend did not cost us an NCAA invite-of course Joe Lunardi believes it did as he moved us to last 4 out status. That being said, IF the SEC is to only get 5 teams in the tourney, and assuming as everyone seems to do that Tenn is a lock (I know all about their non conference victories but they have really been bad down the stretch) our potential game with Bama could very well be for who makes the NCAA and who heads to the NIT. I find it hard to believe Bama would not go over us if they have beat us TWICE on the season, won the west and would have the same or better record. I think our draw in the SEC tourney and our play in the SEC tourney will determine if we get a slot in the big tourney Sunday night. I would hate for this season to essentially go to waste-and to me not making the NCAA this year would seem like a waste, but if we don't make it, no one can say we didn't have our chances. Of course a lot will be determined by these small conference tourney's so everyone should keep up to date on who wins these conference tourney's because in some cases, if an upset happens, it could bring more potential strong candidates to the bubble-teams that most assumed were in but they slipped in their conference tourney and thus fall to the bubble. It will be a hopefully fun week of hoops which will then make next week also exciting for those that love March madness like I do.
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