In the end, Kentucky and Georgia did what they always do. The undefeated Wildcats won and the Bulldogs lost to a No. 1- ranked.
But it was mighty entertaining and tantalizingly close in arriving at that otherwise predictable outcome.
Georgia led the undefeated and top-ranked Wildcats 62-56 with 5:36 to play. But then Kentucky did what it always does — assert its will. Georgia missed the front ends of three consecutive one-and-ones and the Wildcats scored 14 unanswered points on the way to a 72-64 victory.
“Our effort wasn’t good enough,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “We played hard; we played very well; we didn’t play perfect. And they’re so dang good that you almost have to play perfect. That’s just not realistic.”
Charles Mann twice missed front ends in the final 4:22 and Kenny Gaines missed one as well. Meanwhile, the Bulldogs simply had no answer at crunch time for the inside-outside combination of Karl-Anthony Towns and Aaron Harrison. They scored 12 between them during the decisive 14-0 run and finished with 19 points and 16 points, respectively.
The victory keeps the Wildcats undefeated at a 30-0 (17-0 SEC) — the best in a single-season in UK history — and drops Georgia’s all-time record to 0-16 against the nation’s No. 1 team. Florida (14-15, 7-9) gets the next shot at stopping the Wildcats’ streak on Senior Night in Rupp Arena on Saturday.
The Bulldogs fall to 19-10 overall, and 10-7 in SEC play. They were led by two of their seniors honored on Senior Night. Nemanja Djurisic had 18 and Marcus Thornton added 14. Kenny Gaines added 11. Georgia’s undoing came from beyond the arc, where it was 3-for-17 (17.6 percent), and from the foul line, where it finished 9-of-18 (50 percent).
“We’re just hurting because we couldn’t get the job done for Marcus, Nemi and Taylor (Echols),” Gaines said of the Bulldogs’ three seniors, who were honored in a pregame ceremony. “We’re not thinking about how close it was because we didn’t accomplish what we set out to accomplish.”
Georgia wraps up the regular season on the road against Auburn (12-17, 4-12) on Saturday. The Tigers won 69-68 on Feb. 14 in Athens.
Kentucky coach John Calipari got the test he has been looking for lately for his team midway through the second half. After the Wildcats led 43-39, the Bulldogs went on a 17-4 run that resulted in a 56-47 Georgia lead with 9:12 to play. In between were three of the best offensive plays Georgia has made all year: A driving, baseline dunk by Gaines; a 25-foot 3 from J.J. Frazier and a putback by Yante Maten off of two of his own offensive rebounds.
But as quick as Georgia got the nine-point lead, Kentucky wiped most of it out. It took them all of two minutes to get back within two points. Then the Wildcats finally ran down the lead on Aaron Harrison’s running bank shot with 3:51 to go. That tied the game at 62-all and set up a dramatic finish.
“Georgia didn’t go anywhere,” Kentucky coach John Calipari said. “They played hard, they balled. You’ve got to give them credit. They’re a good team. Down in the last five minutes our defense and our playmaking was pretty good.”
A three-point play from Towns gave Kentucky its first lead, 65-62, since the 14-minute mark of the second half. Georgia’s Gaines then missed the front end of a one-and-one at the 2:27 mark. The Wildcats just added to the three-point lead from there as the Bulldogs’ missed back-to-back 3-pointers from Gaines and Frazier and had another one-and-one miss from Mann.
Meanwhile, the 6-foot-11, 250-pound freshman Towns scored the last five times he touched the ball.
“He’s going to be a Top 5 (NBA) pick,” said Georgia’s Thornton, who defended Towns much of the way. “As much as you want to stop him there’s not much you can do about it.”
Conversely, before Mann scored on an uncontested lay-up with 29 seconds remaining, the Bulldogs didn’t record a field goal for span of 5:33. After Thornton’s two free throws gave Georgia a 62-56 lead, it had seven scoreless possessions on two turnovers, three missed free throws and two missed 3s.
“When we went down nine we came in the huddle and we said we wanted three straight stops,” Kentucky’s Towns said. “But them Andrew (Harrison) said five, so we decided to go for five. And my brothers got five straight stops. Actually I think it was six. From there we let defensive win us the game.”
The loss spoiled what was one of the most energetic atmospheres in the history of Stegeman Coliseum. There wasn’t a seat available in the 10,523-capacity arena and some of them were filled with celebrities such as Charles Barkley, Bill Belichick and Ashley Judd. The Georgia crowd adhered to the call for a blackout and the Bulldogs’ fans were chanting “U-G-A” after even after the final buzzer sounded.
“I’m proud of my team,” Fox said. “We had a great crowd and they rolled their sleeves up and saddled up with us and said ‘we’re going to give it all we’ve got’ and our player said ‘we’re going to give it all we got.’ But it wasn’t good enough and there’s no shame in losing like that. I’m really proud of how thyey competed and represented our team and school. We just didn’t win.”
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