No. 4-seeded Georgia women host Mercer
ATHENS, Ga. — Susie Gardner was thrilled just to coach Mercer’s women’s basketball team to its first NCAA tournament berth.
Her excitement grew when the bracket pairings showed the 13th-seeded Bears would face Gardner’s alma mater, No. 4 seed Georgia, today in the first round of the Albany Regional.
It’s a matchup she never expected because the teams already have played this season. She jumped into the air, celebrating with her players, when the game was announced.
“The best part about Selection Monday is the anticipation of seeing your name at some point,” Gardner said. “… I thought there is no way we will play Georgia again. I think that’s what really hit me was that we were going to be playing in Athens. I was so happy for our players, and especially for our fans.”
Georgia (25-6) won 72-54 against Mercer (30-2) on Nov. 19 in Macon, Ga. Mercer also lost its next game, at Western Kentucky, but has since won 27 straight games and swept the Southern Conference regular-season and tournament titles.
Gardner played on three Final Four teams during her career at Georgia from 1983 to ’86 and enjoyed more NCAA success as a graduate assistant under former longtime Lady Bulldogs coach Andy Landers.
“Every year we went to the NCAA tournament, and our goal was to win the national championship,” Gardner said. “When I got into coaching I thought, well, this is going to be easy. Let’s go to the NCAA tournament every year.”
Instead, the long-awaited invitation came in Gardner’s eighth season at Mercer.
“I have a lot of respect for Susie,” said Georgia coach Joni Taylor, adding she can understand the emotions of playing the Bears’ first NCAA tournament game at Georgia. “She’s proud. She’s excited for the opportunity, and she’s going to have her players ready.”
In today’s first game in Athens, fifth-seeded Duke (22-8) will play 12th-seeded Belmont (31-3), which has won 22 games in a row. The No. 23-ranked Bruins entered the Top 25 for the first time this season and are looking for their first NCAA tournament win.
On the roster for Belmont, which beat UT-Martin 63-56 in overtime to win the Ohio Valley Conference tournament title, is 6-foot-1 sophomore forward Maddie Wright, who played at Boyd-Buchanan. Wright’s .574 shooting percentage (66-for-115) leads the Bruins, and her .800 percentage on free throws is second-best on the team.
Belmont senior guard Kylee Smith, from Alpharetta, Ga., and Duke senior guard Lexie Brown, from Suwanee, Ga., became close friends as AAU teammates for the Georgia Ice, beginning when they were in the eighth grade. They’ve maintained that friendship through college.
“It’s not every day you get to play in the NCAA tournament against your best friend,” Smith said Friday. “We’re both super competitive. We both love basketball, and so I just think it’s really going to be a fun experience.”
The two also played against each other in high school and have since remained what Smith described as “really being each other’s biggest cheerleaders.”
Brown is expecting to have a big cheering section with family and friends making the one-hour drive from her hometown.
“I talked to my mom the other day, and she asked me to get 40 tickets for the game,” Brown said. “Those are just the tickets that I provided. That doesn’t count anyone who is coming on their own.”