Lady Bulldogs run Furman out of gym, win 8th straight

Athens, GA -- The Furman Paladins attacked the Lady Dogs with a zone defense, forcing UGA to work the arc and look for the open baseline cuts.  The upfake and pass proved to be beneficial when the Dawgs took the time to set up the offense, creating space and penetrating the defense.

"We knew they were going to play a zone for 40 minutes - I told them it was an opportunity," Head Coach Taylor said, "If we don't run in transition and score, we're going to struggle.

We're not a good enough offensive team to just rely on our half-court offense...Our transition and our defense is what we have to hang our hat on.  No matter how tired you are, no matter how you feel, no matter who you're playing, that's who we are."

Furman's Whitney Bunn governed the offense, driving into the paint and looking for the open players around the 3-point line.  A back-and-forth game for the first few minutes, Furman took control of the scoreboard, as UGA seemed to lack the fire they have been sporting the past couple of games.

Struggling with offensive opportunities, UGA compensated on the opposite end, playing tight deny defense to keep the Paladins in a whirlwind and forcing multiple shot clock violations by the end of the game.

Furman trailed UGA at the half, 32-25, Georgia struggling and only shooting 30.8 percent from the arc.

The second half saw two completely different teams as Furman was forced to play catch-up as Shacobia Barbee and Merritt Hempe increased the tenacity and led the pace of the game.

Furman's Cierra Carter worked the blocks, demonstrating some impressive post moves and converting her possessions into scoring opportunities.  Though she put up a fight, it wasn't enough to keep up with the offensive wrath of Hempe and Barbee as they dominated the offensive put backs and transition lay-ups.

"We really wanted to run a transition," explained Barbee, "We've been rebounding the ball pretty decently, but [Coach Taylor] really wants us to work better on that...the put-backs are nice because that's obviously what happens when we crash the boards, we usually get those rebounds, we just need to be more consistent with that and let that carry over from practice into games."

UGA settled and ran the clock for the last possession - clinching another win under their belts at 77-39.