ATHENS — Georgia took two timeouts to run two different in-bounds plays in the final seconds against Kentucky Wednesday night. But the best the advice Tom Crean gave wasn’t about what to do after the whistle blew the game back into action.
“When it came to that timeout, coach Crean stopped everybody and just told everybody to take three breaths,” Georgia senior Andrew Garcia said. “I appreciated that and I really thought that helped us. Everybody was excited, everybody was pumped and we were kind of getting out of ourselves there for a second. But we re-grouped there. It was almost like a little reminder that we got there playing as a team and that’s how we’re going to win.”
Georgia did. On the final play, P.J. Horne fielded an in-bounds pass from Sahvir Wheeler, bobbled it briefly, then converted a layup with 1.3 seconds left to lift Georgia to a 63-62 win over Kentucky at Stegeman Coliseum.
GEORGIA GAME-WINNER!
— SEC Network (@SECNetwork) January 21, 2021
The Dawgs beat the buzzer and Kentucky 🚨 pic.twitter.com/NhDaWEOvAf
The victory snapped a 14-game losing streak to the Wildcats and gave the Bulldogs (9-4, 2-4 SEC) their second win in row after dropping their previous four conference games.
Kentucky, in danger of suffering its first losing season since 1989, fell to 4-9 and 3-3 in league play.
The Wildcats still lead the all-time series with Georgia 129-27.
Horne’s winning shot left him at the bottom of a pile of teammates near the Kentucky bench after the Wildcats’ final three-quarter-court heave failed to hit anything.
“It was definitely a great experience, hitting a game-winner,” said Horne, a graduate transfer from Virginia Tech. “That was my first time in college basketball.”
Wheeler’s pass to Horne was Georgia’s second attempt at in-bounding the basketball trailing by one with 3.2 seconds remaining. The first time Wheeler had to call a timeout to prevent a turnover on a five-second call as no Bulldogs were able to get open under the basket.
The second time, he was able to get the ball to Horne, who somehow got open under the basket and sealed off Kentucky’s 6-foot-7 forward Brandon Boston, who had been guarding the 5-10 Wheeler on the inbounds.
“We got the guy we wanted; that’s who we wanted to hit,” Crean said. “There was a second option to it, but that’s the guy that we wanted, and that’s what we wanted on the first one. Justin Kier was the screener on both of them. We went with our seniors to execute the action.”
Horne’s winning bucket gave him eight points on the night. Kier, a graduate transfer from George Mason, had seven points, five steals and three assists. Garcia, another graduate transfer, led the Bulldogs with 16 points and six rebounds. Wheeler added 10 points and seven assists and K.D. Johnson also scored 10.
Georgia led most of the game but Kentucky shot 66.7% over the first 12 minutes of the second half. That allowed the Wildcats to erase what at one time had been nine-point Bulldogs lead.
Kentucky also was the beneficiary of two tough personal foul calls that went against the Bulldogs, one on Tye Fagan for pushing a rebounder from behind and another on Garcia for unsportsmanlike conduct. The Wildcats went to the foul line twice as many times as Georgia, 18-9. The Bulldogs made 7, compared to Kentucky’s 13.
The real difference in the game, though, was Georgia’s overall quickness. That resulted in 10 steals and 25 points off 17 Kentucky turnovers. The Bulldogs had only 11 turnovers themselves after coming in averaging 17.
Kentucky’s superior size resulted in a six blocks and a 41-36 rebounding edge. But the shooting woes that plagued the Wildcats all year showed up again as they went 1-for-13 from 3-point range. Georgia was only slightly better, at 4-for-16.
“I love to win, and I thought this was such a collective win from all of us,” Garcia said. “Like Mikal Starks coming in to guard the ball and getting the steal. That was important. Everybody recognizes, 100%, that we can all come together and everybody play a part, and that just makes it more exciting for everybody.”
Now Georgia has to reset for the next challenge. Florida comes to Stegeman Coliseum on Saturday for a 2 p.m. tipoff (televised on ESPN2). The Gators (7-4, 4-3) are coming off a 75-49 rout of No. 6 Tennessee on Tuesday.
“Now we need to get on a one-game winning streak again,” said Crean, having now won two in a row. “It’s a great win against a great program. I didn’t realize Kentucky had won 14 straight, so I’m glad we were able to break that. But we needed to win. Our guys needed to earn something like this against a great opponent.”
