By Layne Weitzel, TTU Sports Information
ATHENS, Ga. – Tennessee Tech women's basketball kicks off its biggest non-conference road trip of the year this week, starting Monday at SEC opponent Georgia.
The game tips off at 6 p.m. CT in Athens inside UGA's Stegeman Coliseum.
Tech will also travel to Wright State and Kentucky at the end of the week. With this trip, the Golden Eagles start their streak of facing three-straight out-of-state opponents.
This game will serve as a homecoming of sorts for Tech seniors Asia Harper and Yaktavia "Shug" Hickson, who are both Georgia natives. Harper is from nearby Fayetteville, while Hickson hails from Atlanta. The Bulldogs do not have anyone on their roster from Tennessee.
Tech (1-3) is currently riding a three-game skid after a season-opening home win over Tennessee Wesleyan, and things will not get easier at Georgia, which received votes in the latest AP poll. The Bulldogs are currently off to a 5-0 start and have played unselfish basketball so far this season, ranking first in the SEC and eighth in the country in assists per game (21.4), as well as tying for first in the conference in assist-to-turnover ratio (1.5). Redshirt sophomore Taja Cole leads UGA with 31 total assists.
Newcomer Cole, a Louisville transfer (10.0 PPG) and freshmen Que Morrison (12.0) and Gabby Connally (7.6) are three of the team's top five scorers. Tech counters with three youngsters among its top five scorers as well in Jordan Brock (11.0 PPG), Kesha Brady (7.8) and MacKenzie Coleman (5.8).
Tech will be a bit more rested than Georgia on Monday night – the Golden Eagles last played the previous Monday night versus Radford, while Georgia is coming off a cross-country road trip to BYU Saturday afternoon.
Tech last met Georgia in Athens on Dec. 28, 2015, falling to the Bulldogs 81-48. Harper, Hickson and Brittany Cooper (who has not been medically cleared to play yet this season) are the only holdovers from the 2015-16 Tech roster – Harper started that game and Hickson collected nine points off the bench.
The Bulldogs have not lost in their 11-game series with Tech, which started back in 1982.
- 2016-17 record: 16-15, 7-9 SEC
- Notables: Tech and Georgia have two common opponents this season in Wright State and Kentucky – the Bulldogs will face Wright State in Athens on Dec. 21 and travel to Lexington for a match-up with Kentucky in January as part of their SEC schedule… Former Georgia head coach Andy Landers, who led the Bulldogs from 1979 until his retirement in 2015, graduated from Tennessee Tech in 1974.
