The Red and Black

Issue date: 1/25/08 Section: Sports

Media Credit: PHIL SANDLIN Georgia's Danielle Taylor goes up for two points as Florida's Depree Bowden and Aneika Henry defend during the Lady Dogs' game in Gainesville, Fla. Thursday. [Click to enlarge]

The No. 17 Lady Bulldogs secured a milestone victory for their head coach with their most dominant performance of the SEC season in an 82-55 win over Florida.

With the win, Andy Landers, who was inducted into the Women's Basketball Hall of Fame in 2007, recorded his 700th victory at Georgia.

"I've been blessed to be at a school with an administration that supported this," Landers said. "More importantly, when you have great assistant coaches and great players, this is something that's going to happen."

Landers joins Tennessee's Pat Summitt and Texas' Jody Conradt as the only coaches to record 700 wins at a single school.

Landers is the eighth coach in women's basketball history to reach 700 career wins. It took him 918 games to reach the mark, making the Georgia coach the fourth-fastest to 700 wins behind Summitt, Stanford's Tara VanDerveer and Conradt.

Sophomore point guard Ashley Houts illustrated what a low profile Landers kept about the achievement, as she first found out by reading a sign held up in the stands during the game.

As for the win itself, the Lady Bulldogs (16-3, 3-2 SEC) never trailed in the contest en route to its largest margin of victory in an SEC regular season game since a 41-point victory over Alabama last February.

After battling back and forth in the early minutes, Georgia went on a 20-2 run to lead 28-8 with five minutes remaining in the first half, allowing just one Florida basket in a span of nearly nine minutes.

Houts led the charge against the Gators (13-6, 2-2) behind a career-high 25 points.

"She found all the seams and gaps and was able to score off of penetration early," Landers said. "They left her open for a couple of threes, and she cashed in."

Senior forward Tasha Humphrey finished with 23 points on 9-13 shooting.

"Her teammates have done a good job of getting her the ball," Landers said. "She's made the right decisions about what to do when she's got the ball as well."

Georgia also shot better than 40 percent from long range, better than double Florida's percentage.

Back above .500 in the SEC at 3-2, the Lady Bulldogs will venture outside of conference play for the final time during the regular season as the team travels to Norman to take on No. 11 Oklahoma (12-4, 3-2 Big 12).

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