In preparation for the upcoming SEC Indoor Championships, the Georgia track and field teams sent split squads in three different directions to compete in the Husky Classic, the Tiger Paw Invitational, and the Tyson Invitational last weekend.

In Seattle, Brett Richardson carved his name into the Bulldog record books with the fifth-best 5,000-meter meet run time in school history, while Morgan VanGorder---yes, that VanGorder---recorded a personal-best 17:20.79 time in the women’s 5,000. The following day, Aaron Evans broke his own school record with a 1:47.88 800-meter run at the University of Washington meet, where Megan Malasarte carded a personal-best 2:07.76 in the women’s 800 to take fourth overall in Red and Black history.

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It’s Monday morning, and it’s time we got up to speed, and, by "we," I really mean "me." I was in a mediation all day on Thursday, after which I drove up to Athens for a continuing legal education seminar beginning on Friday. Frankly, that kept me incommunicado at the end of the week, which had me playing catch-up all weekend, so, if I’m late to the party on some of this, I apologize profusely, but here’s the latest, in case you hadn’t noticed, accompanied by this week’s YouTube musical selection featuring William Shatner:

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One day after the Georgia men’s lacrosse team defeated Auburn (provoking the usual classy reaction for which partisans of the Plainsmen are famous), the Georgia women’s lacrosse team was in action on Saturday at the Club Sports Complex in Athens, where the Bulldogs hosted a doubleheader against two teams of Tigers. The Red and Black got the better of them both.

At 11:00 a.m. Eastern, Georgia lined up against Auburn, coming away with a 20-3 victory. At 4:00 p.m. Eastern, the Classic City Canines hooked up with Clemson, and the Athenians emerged with a 19-7 victory. Though details were scarce because the team’s Twitter feed failed to feature in-game updates this weekend, the squad’s 3-0 start indicates that the Georgia lacrosse ladies are well-prepared for the UCSB Shootout in Santa Barbara next weekend, when the Bulldogs will play four games in three days.

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When the Georgia Bulldogs traveled to Starkville to take on the Mississippi St. Bulldogs, the Red and Black were effective offensively yet suspect on defense, as usual. Wait, what?

Let’s try that again: Georgia went on the road to face a ranked conference opponent and played toe-to-toe with Mississippi State, trailing by three at the half before forging a 59-59 tie to send the game to overtime. For much of the back-and-forth battle, the hometown Bulldogs did not outplay the visiting Bulldogs so much as the former’s Dee Bost outplayed the latter’s Gerald Robinson.

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At 1:30 p.m. Eastern today, Mark Fox's Georgia Bulldogs will try to string together back-to-back wins for the first time since late December. In order to do that, the Hoop Hounds will have to get the better of the Mississippi St. Bulldogs in Starkville and on the SEC Network.

That, however, will be a tall order for the Red and Black. The Magnolia State Mongrels have won four of their last five, aided by Dee Bost, who leads the league in assists and may or may not have skipped out on a pregnant woman in "Lonesome Dove," producing much needless anguish.

Dial up the game, cheer on the Bulldogs (the real Bulldogs), and join the conversation in the comments.

Go 'Dawgs!

Friday was a busy day in Bulldog Nation, not least of all for the Georgia women’s gymnastics and men’s lacrosse teams, both of whom carded significant victories in impressive fashion. Here, in brief, is what happened earlier this evening to produce wins in those two sports:

The sixth-ranked Gym Dogs hosted third-ranked Arkansas in Stegeman Coliseum on Friday night in a crucial conference meet for the newly-resurgent Georgia gymnastics program. The Razorbacks outperformed the Red and Black on the vault by carding the 49.3 that allowed the visitors to edge the Athenians, who cobbled together a cumulative 49.275 on the strength of 9.85s from Cat Hires and Sarah Persinger, a 9.875 from Kaylan Earls, and a 9.9 from Kat Ding.

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Huge game for Razorbacks tonight at Georgia. Must-win. Period.
Josh Bertaccini (February 8, 2012)

On a Wednesday evening that featured some top-tier college basketball around the country, Mark Fox’s Georgia Bulldogs limped into their home date with an Arkansas Razorbacks squad that had yet to card the season’s first road win. Everything about what followed was shocking, as the Classic City Canines carded an 81-59 triumph. No, seriously.

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Well, here we go again. Mark Fox's Georgia Bulldogs will be hosting the Arkansas Razorbacks in Stegeman Coliseum at 8:00 p.m. Eastern on the SEC Network. Should you be so inclined, you may track (though not watch) the game here.

The Hogs are an enigmatic team, having in the last two and a half weeks beaten the Michigan Wolverines and the Vanderbilt Commodores while losing to the Alabama Crimson Tide and the LSU Tigers. Arkansas, which is still looking for its first win of the season on an opponent's home court, travels to Athens hoping to unleash "40 minutes of Hell," in honor of the roundball strategy, biography, and documentary of the same name, all of which are discussed in a recent podcast at Arkansas Expats, SB Nation's Razorbacks weblog and, I believe, the only blog in the network with "sex" in the URL.

If you can stomach another evening of Georgia men's basketball---and, honestly, at this point, no one would fault you if you couldn't---please join in the conversation in the comments below.

Go 'Dawgs!

As you undoubtedly noticed, Dawg Sports suffered a brief outage this morning, which, unfortunately, was not the first such outage in recent weeks. I would like to apologize to the site’s many loyal readers for our temporary inability to provide you with the thorough and reliable Georgia athletics coverage you have come to expect and we are committed to delivering. The outage was brief, but it affected many of the sites within the SB Nation network. Please be assured that our technical support team is working hard to correct these problems and to make sure such outages don't occur again.

I'd also like to apologize for the fact that, if such an outage had to occur today, it didn't occur during tonight's Georgia-Arkansas basketball game. Dawg Sports is concerned about your well-being and would have welcomed an interruption of service that excused us from watching another disheartening men’s basketball loss.

Hang in there, everyone. We’re all on the job; just bear with us. If necessary, feel free to blame Mike Bobo.

Go ‘Dawgs!

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Wednesday is upon us once more, and, this time, it’s an ordinary workday rather than a de facto college football holiday. Even though National Signing Day is in our rear view mirror, though, there’s still plenty to discuss and much to consider. After the jump, I’ll offer you a taste of the noteworthy news for your perusal as you quaff that initial cup of coffee and prepare to dive into your day, but, first, in honor of hailtogeorgia’s shocking revelation that Lawrence Welk publicly advocated marijuana use and vineyarddawg’s futile attempt to impugn the unassailable awesomeness of James T. Kirk, I give you William Shatner’s interpretation of "Rocket Man":

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In anticipation of tomorrow night’s men’s basketball game between the Georgia Bulldogs and the Arkansas Razorbacks, I am scheduled to appear with Josh Bertaccini on "The Red Zone" on ESPN Radio 92.1 FM out of Fayetteville, Ark., at 2:30 p.m. Eastern/1:30 p.m. Central on Wednesday, February 8.

If you’re in the area, tune in on your radio dial. If you’re not in the area, follow the above link to the station’s website and click "Listen Live." If you have any predictions on the probability that I will go off on a rant about Georgia basketball, feel free to say so in the comments below.

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Since my coverage of Friday’s Georgia lacrosse action drew a favorable response, I figured I’d cap off a solid day of sports coverage by providing you with a wrapup of Sunday afternoon’s 13-3 road win over Kennesaw State.

The Bulldog men brought great intensity to their bruising showdown with the Owls, building up an early 4-1 advantage that had been extended to 6-2 by halftime. Attacker Michael Trainer topped all Georgia scorers with four goals by the break, after which the Bulldogs went to their bench, getting second-half goals from midfielder Jeff Campbell, midfielder Evan Hamrick, attacker Brian Jungles, midfielder Andrew Quigley, and midfielder George Walker. Goalie Conor Busby, meanwhile, registered several saves.

Next up for the Red and Black men’s lacrosse team will be a Friday night clash with Auburn at Lassiter High School.

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All right, I’m late to the party, and I didn’t see the basketball game, and I have another event to cover, so, instead of an instantaneous ill-informed roundball wrapup, I’m going to fold the Fox Hounds’ latest debacle into a Saturday Sunday sports summary. Here we go:

In Blacksburg on Saturday, the Georgia track and field teams notched four wins and carded 19 season- or personal-best marks. Among the standouts were Torrin Lawrence, who won the 200-meter dash with a 21.12-second time that was the eighth-best in the nation this year. Waymond Storey was right behind Lawrence, finishing second with a 21.26 time. The banner achievement of the day, though, belonged to Morgann Leleux, whose career-best 14’4.5" pole vault set the meet record and qualified her to compete in the upcoming NCAA Indoor Championships.

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If this comment thread had a soundtrack, it would be Rod Stewart's "Reason to Believe," although, frankly, at the moment, I have a tough time giving you one. Nevertheless, our team is still our team, and Mark Fox's Georgia Bulldogs will be taking on Cuonzo Martin's Tennessee Volunteers in Knoxville on Fox Sports South at 8:00 p.m. Eastern.

If you're looking for cause for hope, how 'bout the fact that Georgia beat Tennessee earlier this year, and Georgia beat Tennessee in Knoxville last year. I'm saying there's a chance, so jump into the conversation and cheer on the Fox Hounds as they ascend Rocky Top to invade the haven for all that ghastly orange.

Go 'Dawgs!

They do this to me every time.

I have a love-hate relationship with the Georgia Bulldogs men’s basketball team, one that is best described using Al Pacino’s most famous line from "The Godfather, Part III." I get excited, then I get disappointed. I think the program has turned a corner, then I watch a basketball game so bad it produces a comment thread that makes Gator fans giggle. I think we can all agree that anything that makes the Florida faithful happy is, by its very nature, bad for America.

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Earlier today, my eight-year-old son and I were teammates in a game of Wii Madden, in which our Green Bay Packers defeated the opposing New York Giants, 100-3. We led, 434-45, in total offense, gaining 192 rushing yards (mostly on toss sweeps) and 292 passing yards while holding the opposition to 51 passing yards and minus-six rushing yards.

The Pack gained 13 first downs to the G-Men’s one and amassed 235 punt return yards to New York’s none. (We didn’t punt.) The Giants turned the ball over four times (including throwing one pick-six) and failed to move the chains on any of their 13 third down attempts. Green Bay converted one of three third downs, two of two fourth downs, and nine of eleven two-point attempts.

With the Packers leading, 97-3, in the final minute, I directed my son to take his time outs, in order to set up a short field goal with eight seconds left. I can just about guarantee you that the Super Bowl won’t be anywhere near as much fun.

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It has been both a busy week and a busy day, for reasons having nothing whatever to do with actual sporting events being played. Nevertheless, actual sporting events have been played, and we thought you might be interested in knowing about them, so here is a brief rundown of your Friday Georgia sports action before you call it a night and get your weekend underway:

The Gym Dogs were in Salt Lake City on Friday night to take on No. 1-ranked Utah. The teams took turns on the bars and on the vault in the first two rotations, with each side taking one event. On the vault, the Athenians rode Kaylan Earls’s 9.825, Cat Hires’s 9.85, and Kat Ding’s 9.9 to an overall 49.175 mark, but that was not enough to match the Red Rocks’ 49.225 score in the event. On the bars, Georgia earned a pair of 9.825s, plus a 9.9 from Gina Nuccio and a 9.925 from Ding to cobble together a cumulative 49.275 tally to top Utah’s 49.25 on the same apparatus.

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Well, this is a hell of a note.

Today was going to be a lazy sunny Friday in Bulldog Nation. I had a rant about men’s basketball scheduled to be posted at noon, which was bumped back to Saturday evening due to intervening events, and, after the issue with Josh Harvey-Clemons’s letter of intent was resolved, I was going to chide the folks in Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall for misspelling his name:

Unfortunately, a rumor-riddled Thursday afternoon gave way to a news-breaking Friday morning, as it was made known that Nick Marshall, Chris Sanders, and Sanford Seay had been dismissed from the team. Marshall and Seay reportedly were involved in a theft from a teammate.

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Two sets of Lady Bulldogs clashed in Athens on Thursday night, as the Georgia women’s basketball team hosted Mississippi State for a conference contest that got a little hairy for the home team shortly following intermission, but the better team rose up in the face of adversity and carded a solid 70-60 victory over the visitors.

Both teams shot in the vicinity of 40 per cent from the field in the first half, but Georgia took 35 shots from two-point range, as compared to Mississippi State’s 23. The Magnolia State squad turned the ball over 15 times in the first 20 minutes, while the Peach State club won the battle of the boards (21-16) and outscored the visitors in the paint (18-6). Combined with the Red and Black’s 50 per cent success rate from three-point range in the opening period, that effort produced a 36-26 halftime lead for Andy Landers’s team.

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On Wednesday night, Mark Fox’s Georgia Bulldogs played the worst game of basketball in history. If I went back in time to December 1891 and showed the game film to James Naismith, it would prevent the invention of the sport. This game is what drove Dennis Hopper’s character in "Hoosiers" to drink.

If you think I’m exaggerating, you didn’t watch this travesty. In the first half, the Red and Black scored 15 points, hit about one-fifth of their shots from the field, had more rebounds than points, turned the ball over nine times, and were outscored 14-0 in the paint. You think some of those statistics are typographical errors. They are not.

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As if National Signing Day hadn't provided excitement enough in Bulldog Nation, Mark Fox's Georgia Bulldogs are back in action on the Plains at 8:00 p.m. Eastern, taking on the Auburn Tigers in a men's basketball game being aired on the SEC Network.

If you're not too spent from tracking today's recruiting battles, join in the fun in the comments below.

Go 'Dawgs!

This class will not end up with the same marquee names as last year's so-called Dream Team . . . because last year's class was about injecting talent back into a program coming off a 6-7 season. This year is about filling needs.

Seth Emerson (January 26, 2012)

2011:Dream Team 2012:Ring team?

Hutson Mason (January 30, 2012)

Despite the fact that modern recruiting coverage traces its roots back to Georgia’s courtship of Herschel Walker, I have always considered covering recruiting a somewhat odd endeavor, chiefly due to the fact that any enterprise wholly dependent upon the decisionmaking of American teenage males is bound to be fraught with chaos, frustration, and unpredictability to a degree I am certain to find disconcerting. My central nervous system instinctively rebels at the notion of fretting over football in February; I am orderly enough to compartmentalize my angst, and the cubbyholes arranged throughout my brain assign football-related fretting to the period from Labor Day weekend through New Year’s Day, while reserving February for anguish over the University of Georgia’s baseball, men’s basketball, and women’s gymnastics teams.

Nevertheless, incoming freshmen are essential to the future of any group comprised of collegians, so it matters a great deal that the Georgia Bulldogs are one of nine major-conference teams to have earned an overall five-star rating, based on Rivals.com’s recruiting class rankings from 2008 to 2011. It was the latter class, of course, that brought home the "Dream Team" that validated Mark Richt’s regime, which will remain in place on Labor Day 2012, contrary to what we believed on Labor Day 2011.

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Welcome to National Signing Day! The fax lines are open, the Dawg Sports National Signing Day open comment thread is up and running, and coverage is being provided by SB Nation, Seth Emerson, and GeorgiaDogs.com. Below, you will find the list of Georgia signees, which will be updated throughout the day, as signed letters of intent are received. Ladies and gentlemen, here is the latest crop of Bulldogs:

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National Signing Day is upon us! For those who are unfamiliar with National Signing Day, it’s like a day off for adults!

With recruiting coverage set to begin at 8:00 a.m. Eastern at GeorgiaDogs.com, we are opening our comment thread at 7:45, so that you may share your thoughts, hopes, and updates in the comments below. We’ll be bringing you periodic updates throughout the day, including the latest list of Georgia signees as the hay is gathered into the barn.

Join in the fun in the comments below!

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Good morning! We have a full day ahead of us, so we’re diving right into this early edition of Dawg Bites ere we get wrapped up in a busy Wednesday that features non-stop recruiting news, capped off by a men’s basketball game tonight. Here is what you need to know before we get started:

Unless you’re logging onto Dawg Sports from the cave in which you’ve been sequestered without human interaction or internet access since Blair Walsh’s field goal was blocked in the Outback Bowl (which, honestly, I couldn’t fault you for if you were), you are aware that today is National Signing Day, the high holy day of college football recruiting. The morning comment thread is scheduled to open at 7:45 a.m. Eastern, 15 minutes before coverage formally begins at GeorgiaDogs.com. We’ll be here throughout the day, bringing you updates and analysis regarding the Georgia Bulldogs’ recruiting class as the letters of intent roll off the fax machine in Butts-Mehre Heritage Hall, while SB Nation’s recruiting hub will keep you up to speed on the national scene. If you’re too impatient to wait, though, From Hedges to Hardwood is on the scene live right now.

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Andy Landers’s 17th-ranked Lady Bulldogs welcomed Pat Summitt’s seventh-ranked Lady Volunteers to Stegeman Coliseum on Sunday evening for a critical SEC women’s basketball game. Though the Athenians kept it close initially, the Tennesseans pulled away in the second half, ultimately carding a 67-50 victory.

Georgia played Tennessee evenly in the opening 20 minutes, with each team draining a dozen field goals, sinking a pair of three-pointers, and scoring 16 points in the paint. The Red and Black turned twelve first-half Big Orange turnovers into eight points and outscored the visitors, 6-4, on the fast break. As a result, the Lady Dogs trailed the Lady Vols by a single point at intermission.

Tennessee opened the second half with a Meighan Simmons trey to jump-start the 11-0 run that staked the visitors to a 40-28 edge. Georgia pulled to within eight with 15 and a half minutes to play, but the shorthanded Lady Bulldogs, who placed just seven players on the court over the course of 40 minutes, could not keep pace. The Red and Black, who shot 28.8 per cent from two-point range, were held without a field goal in the final four minutes in the course of falling to 5-4 in conference play.

Go ‘Dawgs!

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