Illinois Illinois/Georgia Georgia Women's College Basketball recap on ESPN

Playing for the first time since Dec. 10 because of mononucleosis, Thomas shook off the rustiness early in scoring a career-high 24 points in fourth-ranked Georgia's 100-59 rout of Illinois on Thursday night.

"We may want her to get sick a couple of weeks before the NCAAs," quipped Georgia coach Andy Landers.

Senior guard Coco Miller contributed 23 points, six assists and four steals and was glad to have Thomas back.

"She was huge for us tonight," Miller said. "She was pretty much unstoppable for us."

Thomas made 9-of-12 field goals.

"I felt good early," Thomas said. "I expected to come out a little rusty, but I fell back into the rhythm early."

Georgia (12-2) forced 29 Illinois (5-8) turnovers, scoring 41 points as a result.

"Their guards played well," Illinois coach Theresa Grentz said. "They played strong and they played hard. I thought our passes were not as sharp and crisp as they needed to be in the first half to initiate our offense."

Illinois, less than a week after an impressive 73-56 win at No. 14 Auburn, was overwhelmed early by Georgia's aggressive pressure defense.

The Illini trailed 10-9 after Allison Curtin's layup with 15:36 to play in the first half. But Georgia scored 11 straight points, and the game was practically out of reach for the Illini halfway through the first half.

During a four-minute stretch, Illinois went nine straight possessions without scoring and failed to even get a shot off in six of those possessions. On three straight trips down the floor, reserve freshman center Iveta Marcauskaite walked once and had the ball stolen twice.

Marcauskaite, Illinois' leading scorer with 13 points a game, fouled out in nine minutes and finished with three points and seven turnovers. Anne O'Neil led Illinois with 17 points.

The electronic scoreboard failed to operate until the second half. For the first nine minutes, the public address announcer called out the score after each basket until a portion of the scoreboard normally reserved for a giant school logo was reconfigured to list the score. The time was kept on the clocks over the backboards.

Miller moved into fifth on Georgia's career scoring list, passing La'Keisha Frett, who scored 1,850 points. Miller has 1,862, six less than twin Kelly's career total after her 12 points Thursday.

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Women's College Basketball Scoreboard