Wildcats to battle Georgia

By Chris Easterling
Assistant Sports Editor
and O. Jason Stapleton
Staff Writer

It's another story of pupil against teacher as the UK women's basketball team travels south to Athens tonight to battle top-ranked Georgia at 7:30. UK coach Bernadette Locke-Mattox returns to battle Andy Landers, the Georgia coach she played under from 1979-81. Locke-Mattox led the Lady Bulldogs in scoring and assists in her junior season while becoming UGA's first female All-American.

Ironically, Locke-Mattox was named to the 1980 All-Tournament team at UK's Lady Kat Invitational. After graduating from Georgia in 1981, Locke-Mattox remained in Athens as an assistant to Landers until 1984. Tonight's game will be the first time Locke-Mattox and her former coach face-off in battle.

"(Georgia), of course, was the school which I graduated from and will always be close to my heart," Locke-Mattox said, "but I'm going down for a totally different reason."

During her time as a Georgia assistant, Locke-Mattox helped recruit two of the best players in the school's history: Teresa Edwards and Katrina McClain. Landers continues to feel a special bond with Locke-Mattox.

"She helped establish and build this program both as a player and a coach," he said. "I will always be in debt to her."

When Locke-Mattox replaced Sharon Fanning as head coach at UK this year, Landers admitted that he wasn't the least bit surprised Athletics Director C. M. Newton choose her to run the UK women's program.

"She wouldn't surprise me if she ran for mayor or governor and won," he said. "She's the kind of person who can do anything she puts her mind to."

UK (5-16 overall, 1-7 in the Southeastern Conference) will have to play out of its mind if the student is going to upset the teacher. UGA enters the game 20-2 record, 8-0 in the SEC. But as she has done throughout her first season as a head coach, Locke-Mattox is not concerned with her team's record.

"We never look at the L's and W's," she said. "Our whole goal this season is to build a sound base for the future."

The Cats enter the game on a two-game losing streak, the most recent loss coming Saturday in a 88-46 decision at Auburn. But UK has shown in the past they can run with ranked opponents, such as the five-point loss at then-No. 2 Vanderbilt on Jan. 11 and the 69-65 upset of No. 24 Arkansas on Jan. 28.

"Our record's not showing it," sophomore forward Shaunda Roberts said, "but I can see individually and as a team we are getting better."

One of the biggest problems the Cats had entering the season was the large numbers of relatively inexperienced talented which the team had. But now the team has gained some valuable experience against some of the country's top women's basketball teams that could help in the long run.

"There's a lot of closeness on the team that we never had before," senior Julie Swarens-Beickman said. "I think that in a couple of years down the road that's really going to make a difference."