Lady Dogs discover fate tonight

Winning 21 games and finishing in a tie for third place in the Southeastern Conference should be enough for Georgia to secure a spot in the NCAA Tournament, but the Lady Bulldogs' late slide might considerably damage their seeding.

The NCAA will announce its women's national basketball tournament bracket tonight at 7. Georgia (21-10) does not have an automatic invitation to the biggest party of the season. An at-large bid seems within reach, but nobody can be sure until today's announcement.

"I feel pretty confident we'll get in," Georgia point guard Jasmine James said. "It's a matter of us trying to sit around and figure out what our seeding will be like. I don't think anybody has any doubts about us actually getting in."

Georgia went 10-6 in the SEC's regular season and tied with Vanderbilt for third place. Vanderbilt won a tiebreaker so Georgia was a No. 4 seed in the SEC Tournament and the Lady Bulldogs defended their regular-season finish by reaching the SEC semifinals.

"Are we one of the best 64 teams in the country? Absolutely," Georgia coach Andy Landers said. "Our nonconference schedule was challenging and a good one. I think even the games that we lost were competitive. I think our body of work in conference play speaks for itself. After Tennessee, our conference seemed so even to me in terms of its competitiveness. We had lower-level teams beating upper-level teams and went right up to the end."

The sticking point for Georgia will probably be its late-season plunge. Georgia lost four of its last five games, all against SEC opponents. Georgia and had chances in the last three regular-season games to clinch second place and could not. Georgia lost 74-71 at Florida in the regular-season finale and lost 82-58 to Tennessee in the SEC Tournament semifinals.

"Overall, we had a pretty good season overall, but I think those losses there at the end will affect us,"