With the SEC East Florida Gators losing today, John Calipari and his Kentucky Wildcats had a win-win scenario with a win over the Georgia Bulldogs. First, Kentucky could move to only a half game out of first place in the SEC East. Secondly, Kentucky could drop the Bulldogs to 3-4 and start to drive a nail in the coffin of the Bulldogs SEC East title hopes. While it was not pretty at times, Kentucky achieved both objectives with a 66-60 win over the Bulldogs at Rupp Arena.
It was obvious from the beginning that this would not be a repeat of the Athens affair. Kentucky forced three early Bulldog turnovers and Darius Miller started the game with a trey and Kentucky surged to an early 9-2 lead in the first three minutes. Not much changed the next several minutes as the Kentucky defense refused to let the Georgia offense get into a thythm, resulting in some especially sloppy play by the Bulldogs. Kentucky on the other hand was playing zone busters with Brandon Knight nailing two three pointers and Doron Lamb hitting on to give UK a 24-12 lead with about 9:00 remaining in the first half.
Kentucky was presented a huge opportunity to blow the game open when both Trey Thompkins and Jeremy Price both got their second fouls with around 7:00 remaining, but Georgia , now desperate, remained in the zone and Kentucky made them pay. Doron Lamb nailed another trey and Darius Miller sank a couple of FT’s to give UK a 34-18 lead with less than 4:00 remaining. Kentucky maintained that lead and went in up 15 at the half, at 39-24.
You could not script a better half for Kentucky as they hit 51% from the floor and hit 6-12 3-pointers. Doron Lamb had 11 points at half, followed by Miller with 10. Both Terrence Jones and Josh Harrellson had two fouls apiece in the first half but Kentucky’s backcourt played so well, that this was not the disaster it could have been.
Georgia tried to claw their way back into the game in the second half as Jeremy Price started to score in the paint and Dustin Ware nailed a couple of treys and Georgia was able to close the deficit to 48-38 with 14:00 remaining. What followed was about six minutes of extremely lackadaisical play on both ends as Kentucky went cold from the floor and Georgia could not put together a run. The Dawgs did finally cut the lead to 53-45 with about 7:00 remaining. Doron Lamb hit the next two baskets to put Kentucky back up by 12 at 57-45.
But as the trend has been lately, the Wildcats can’t win drama free. Poor FT shooting and another Dustin Ware trey cut the lead to 59-53 with just 2:00 remaining. From that point, Doron Lamb, DeAndre Liggins, and Brandon Knight combined to go 5-6 from the FT line to salt the game away as Kentucky held on for a 66-60 win.
I have to saw that I am extremely concerned with the inconsistency of this basketball team as for the second straight game, the Wildcats blew big leads and had to fend off comeback bids to win the game. The Wildcats were spectacular in the first half but pretty much horrendous in the second. Luckily, the Bulldogs seemed equally disinterested in winning the game down the stretch as they made several bad passes and self destructed. I attribute some of these late game collapses to the non existent bench but Caipari made no attempts to play anyone but the main six even in the first half when things were going good. Only Eloy Vargas saw time and that was just for five minutes in the first half. I hate to doubt Calipari, but you can not tell me that Hood, Poole, and Polson are such a liability that they can not even give three minutes of rest time a half for the big six.
Doron Lamb saved Kentucky off the bench today with 17 points on 7-11 shooting. I t seems that every basket he gets is clutch in one way or another. Darius Miller had 14 points and 7 rebounds. He seems to be trying to step up his game some but he still has that tendency to score in spurts and then disappear, but I do like how he is trying to emerge. He is playing with so much more confidence than earlier in the year but still needs to be that vocal leader. DeAndre Liggins and Brandon Knight both had 11 points, but both struggled with shooting for periods of the game.
Kentucky’s defense continues to be stellar however as Trey Thompkins never got into the flow of the game and finished with just 9 points and went 2-10 from the field. This does mark the third straight game that Kentucky has had to rely on the defense rather than their offense though, not to harp on it, but you have to wonder if the thin bench has worn these players down where they are not as productive.
Enough harping on that though. Even with the late drama, Kentucky controlled the game throughout and never trailed. That is saying a lot with a game as talented as Georgia. And Kentucky survived this week with four top ten teams already losing today. Make that a win-win-win as Kentucky improved their chances at moving up in the polls as well. And the Florida loss makes next week the most important week of the season for Kentucky with road games at Ole Miss and then Florida.
For complete game stats, go here.
Keep following www.http://wildcatbluenation.com for the best in Kentucky basketball and football news, rumors, and opinions. By Kentucky fans for Kentucky fans