Georgia vs Tennessee final score: Lady Vols surge in the second half, beat the Bulldogs

It's been an unusual start to the basketball season for Tennessee -- as of this morning, the Lady Vols were looking up at rival Georgia in the national rankings and in the SEC standings.

But this afternoon, that's not the case.

The Lady Vols got huge performances from Bashaara Graves and Meighan Simmons to best Georgia, 79-66, at Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville -- and brushed past one of the two SEC teams ahead of them in the national rankings.

Georgia opened up a 42-40 halftime lead, but a three by Simmons a few minutes after the break jump-started the Vols to an early second-half run that seemed to turn the tide.

The Bulldogs fought back to close the margin to 57-53, but another Simmons and Graves-led run pushed the Tennessee lead to 65-53 and they never looked back again.

In the end, Simmons finished the day with 16 points and 5 assists, while Graves added 23 points and 8 rebounds -- all enough to keep the Vols chugging off to a 2-0 start in SEC play.