College Sports

ATLANTA - A tornado. A doubleheader. An improbable trip to the NCAA tournament. The Georgia Bulldogs made history on Sunday afternoon, downing Arkansas 66-57 in the SEC Championship game in Atlanta to earn an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.

Tennessee came up short of a Southeastern Conference double, and the Volunteers may have to do without a top seed in the NCAA tournament. Steven Hill hit a turnaround jumper with 5.3 seconds remaining for his only points of the game and Arkansas knocked off fourth-ranked Tennessee 92-91 Saturday night in the semifinals of the SEC tournament.

Georgia erased a nine-run deficit to storm past Arkansas 15-11 Saturday to gain a split in the series in front of a Baum Stadium crowd of 6,796.

Clemson's dubious basketball history has drawn chuckles for years, and the depth of its futility - try 0-53 at North Carolina - is difficult to comprehend. Well, this Clemson team is starting to shed the image that it's a football school in a basketball league. The Tigers stunned No. 7 Duke 78-74 Saturday to advance to their first Atlantic Coast Conference final in 46 years.

Pitcher Matt Fairel only allowed one run in eight innings to help lead Florida State to a 11-2 victory over Georgia Tech on Saturday.

The setting resembled a Pee Wee league game, with seats reserved for family and friends. Most everyone else headed for home while a Southeastern Conference tournament like no other ad-libbed its way through the weekend, trying to pick up the pieces from a devastating storm.

Georgia Southern set an NCAA record for all divisions Saturday by hitting 14 home runs in a 26-8 victory over Columbia. Chris Shehan and Griffin Benedict each homered twice for Georgia Southern, which had 12 players hit home runs.

ATLANTA -- No one thought Georgia could win two SEC tournament games in one day. Then again, no one asked Georgia seniors Sundiata Gaines and Dave Bliss. Gaines scored 20 points and Georgia, a last-place team in the regular season, upset Mississippi State 64-60 on Saturday night to move to within one win of its first NCAA tournament appearance since 2002.

Zac Swansey scored five points in overtime, including an unlikely turnaround 3-pointer with 1.2 seconds left, and Georgia upset Kentucky to 60-56 on Saturday to continue its surprising SEC tournament run.

The tradition-filled Atlantic Coast Conference tournament has taken an unfamiliar twist: Clemson is sticking around for the weekend. James Mays scored 15 points on Friday and Clemson overwhelmed Boston College with its full-court press, cruising to an 82-48 win to reach the semifinals for the first time in 10 years.