THE TEN AT 10:

So much went on with Georgia over the weekend and is going on with the Bulldogs' athletic program this week, we needed a special edition of “The Ten at 10” to get it all in. . . .

1. First, congratulations must be offered to Georgia swimming and diving coach Jack Bauerle for being named SEC coach of the year for the 14^th time in his decorated career. Bauerle was tabbed for the honor during the SEC Championships in College Station, Texas, where the women’s team won its fourth straight SEC title and 10^th overall. Bauerle also coaches the men’s team, which finished third.

“You’re always proud when you win the SEC, but I’m especially proud this year,” said Bauerle, who’s women’s team edged host Texas A&M 1,420 to 1,296. “This was a rugged meet and our ladies showed a lot of character in winning it. We believed it was going to be a battle for five days and it was.”

The meet was highlighted by the Lady Dogs record-setting win in the 400-yard freestyle relay. Allison Schmitt, Chantal Van Landeghem, Shannon Vreeland and Megan Romano shattered the previous SEC record by nearly a second with a time of 3:11.23.

2. Women’s basketball coach Andy Landers also reached a milestone over the weekend. He recorded his 900^th career victory when the Lady Dogs defeated Ole Miss 73-54 in Oxford. With the win, UGA improved to 23-4 on the season and 11-3 in league play.

After the game, Landers tweeted, “Thanks for all the tweets, texts and emails. I am humble, thankful and blessed."

As I explained in a story that ran on Sunday, Landers is not recognized as a 900-game winner by the NCAA. They do not count the 82 games he won in four years as the coach at Roane State, a junior college, even though 30 of those victories came against four-year colleges. Landers has won 818 games in 34 years as Georgia’s coach, however, which still ranks eighth all time among women’s basketball coaches.

3. What makes Landers’ accomplishment all the more impressive is where he started with the program. He didn't have much to work with.

I was unable to work this in this weekend’s story, but when he began at Georgia, Landers’ shared an office with Georgia offensive coordinator Bill Pace and defensive coordinator Erk Russell. He shared that he hadn’t even seen his first team play for several weeks when he first arrived in Athens because he had to get out and recruit. He finally asked a player who had dropped by to introduce herself if she could get the team together for a little pick-up game.

“So they got together at old Stegeman Hall, down there at the foot of the hill,” Landers said. “I go down there and I’m watching and I’m thinking, ‘oh my God, what have I gotten myself into?’ It was awful. So I started working. You look up 899 games later and you really don’t stop. You’re just working to win that next one.”

Landers’ 24.4 wins per year ranks fourth among active coache.s

4. Georgia’s track and field squads were also competing in SEC championships this past weekend. The Bulldog men finished fourth and the women at the indoor championships in Fayetteville, Ark.

The women claimed SEC individual titles in the shot put (Hilenn James), long jump (Chanice Porter) and heptathlon (Garrett Scantling).

5. Congratulations to two former Bulldogs who were inducted into the Georgia Sports Hall of Fame over the weekend. Buck Belue, quarterback of the 1980 national championship team, and Heather Stepp McCormick, who won three individual national championships for the Gym, were feted during ceremonies in Macon Saturday night.

6. Panic is never a good idea but there are certainly a lot of concerns for the Georgia baseball team, which fell to 2-5 when it dropped its second of three games to Belmont on Sunday. This time the Bulldogs lost 5-4 in 11 innings.

“I don’t know what to say,” coach David Perno said to reporters afterward. “Our guys are fighting and pulling hard. They deserve a break and they just can’t get it.”

Georgia will try to record victory No. 3 Tuesday at Georgia State.

7. Don’t look now, but Georgia’s spring football practice begins on Saturday. The Bulldogs’ first of 15 practices, including the April 6 G-Day Game (1 p.m., CSS), is scheduled for 10:30 a.m. that morning.

Of course, priority one this spring will be beginning the work on rebuilding the defense. Coordinator Todd Grantham’s unit will be replacing nine starters, several of which went through the NFL combine this past weekend.

The Bulldogs have enlisted 13 midyear enrollees to help with the task. Coach Mark Richt bragged on those players to AJC recruiting reporter Michael Carvell in an interview this past week.

“It takes work and planning to be ready to go at the midyear,” Richt said. “It takes a lot of support from the family, from the school and even our administration. So the guys that actually went through the process and got it done seem to be more responsible than maybe some of the other freshmen that have come in the past, by virtue of the fact that they had a plan and they executed that plan. And lot of it had to do with that they were able to handle the coursework early.”

I’ll be profiling all the midyear enrollees in a regular series that will begin with spring practice.

8. There are a bunch of old Bulldogs back on campus this semester as well. Ben Jones, Orson Charles, Rennie Curran, Blair Walsh, Danny Ware, Brandon Miller and Brandon Boykin are all back in school completing work toward degrees.

“It’s kind of neat to see our guys come back and continue to pursue their degrees, even though they might've left early to go the league,” Richt said.

9. Richt is still recovering from hip-replacement surgery he had on Feb. 2 but insists he’ll be ready to go for spring ball.

"I’m still limping around it a little bit,” he said. “I’m getting there. I’m thankful that the old pain is gone. I’ve got the pain from the trauma of the surgery but that will go away, so I'm encouraged. It's really nice to have (sports medicine director) Ron Courson downstairs. He's got all the equipment you need to rehab, so that's nice for me."

10. Spring football isn’t all that’s going on at Georgia on Saturday. In fact, there’s very little that is NOT going on that day. There’s also a men’s basketball game against Tennessee, a baseball game against UAB, women’s soccer against Clemson, a softball doubleheader, a women’s equestrian competition, a swimming and diving meet over at the Ramsey Center and a last-chance NCAA-qualifier track meet at the Spec Towns complex.