Dawg tired, but still dribbling

ATLANTA -- The last time such a through-the-looking-glass example of surrealism followed a tornado, Dorothy wandered the Yellow Brick Road with a scarecrow, a tin man and a cowardly lion.

To borrow the words she shared with her faithful dog: ‘‘Toto, I don't think we're in Kansas anymore.''

Georgia's stay in the Southeastern Conference basketball tournament has now reached the terrain of the abnormal and the paranormal. The Bulldogs now find themselves on another planet, a place of possibility where it's no longer laughable to spin blindly and hit a game-winning shot or beat a better opponent with three post players plagued by foul trouble and the senior floor leader unavailable for the final 7:18 minutes of regulation after fouling out.

Perhaps this final score shouldn't make eyes bulge out of their sockets given what happened earlier in the day, but tell me these numbers on the board at Alexander Memorial Coliseum don't elicit a double-take and a headshake.

Georgia 64, Mississippi State 60.

Between noon and midnight Saturday, the Bulldogs beat a potential NCAA tournament team in Kentucky and an NCAA lock in Mississippi State to reach their first SEC tournament championship game since 1997.

Still, you'd have to go back much farther in the history book to find such an unlikely and remarkable zeroes-to-heroes metamorphosis. In 1983, Georgia entered the SEC tournament as a No. 6 seed, but won the tournament and dribbled their way to the NCAA Final Four with the help of Terry Fair and Vern Fleming. This year's batch of Bulldogs had to negotiate an extra obstacle in order to reach Sunday's 3:30 p.m. championship game against Arkansas. When Georgia became the only No. 6 seed to win the tourney in 1983 in the days before conference expansion, it merely had to win three games since it received a first-round bye.

‘‘I can hardly describe how proud I am of our players,’’ Georgia coach Dennis Felton said. ‘‘We're also determined to come out and play with the same kind of conviction tomorrow.’’

Throughout the tournament, the Bulldogs have received pivotal plays from unlikely sources. Dave Bliss, the offensively-challenged senior center, banked in a game-winning shot in overtime in a first round game against Ole Miss. Freshman Zach Swansey, forced into late action against Kentucky after senior Sundiata Gaines fouled out, spun and hit a 3-pointer to make the difference in overtime against Kentucky Saturday afternoon. Against Mississippi State, Georgia received inspired play from 6-foot-10 center Albert Jackson (12 points, eight rebounds) and junior wing Corey Butler (8 points, 6 rebounds). Swansey also resurfaced as a leader rather than a last-second scorer, taking over the point when Gaines (20 points, 5 rebounds) fouled out with 7:18 to go.

Gaines sustained a hip injury after charging into a Mississippi State defender beneath the basket on his last foul. Felton said he didn't know whether Gaines' availability for the championship game would be in doubt.

After leading by as many as 11 points in the first half, Georgia was forced to come up with inventive ways to hang together given that Gaines, Bliss, Jackson and forward Jeremy Price were all saddled with second half foul trouble. Not to mention the fact that they were extremely fatigued after playing nearly 80 minutes in one day.

‘‘It was definitely a grind,’’ Bliss said. ‘‘I've probably played 120 games (in my career), but never two in a row. This team has really come together over the last few days.’’

The sum has definitely proven to be greater than the individual parts. Keep in mind that this team had lost 11 of 13 games heading into what was supposed to be a very short SEC tournament stay. With one more win, the Bulldogs will crash the NCAA tournament party by bum-rushing their way through the servant's entrance with four wins in four days.

‘‘My parents always say, ‘When you're at the bottom, you have no way to go but up,’’’ Butler said.

So they will play on, albeit with more sleep and more time to study their opponent than they had early Saturday morning. It would be understandable if the Bulldogs hit the wall and run out of fuel against Arkansas, but the potential rewards could prove to be rejuvenating -- for this team and this program as a whole.

‘‘I'm not really sure what motivation you need besides the automatic bid that's at the end of the fourth game,’’ Bliss said.

They're still following the basketball version of the Yellow Brick Road. Somewhere along the way, this team found what the scarecrow, the tin man and the lion lacked.

A brain, a heart and the courage to continue.