Kentucky looks to continue its dominance at home against Georgia on Tuesday, as the longtime foes meet in Southeastern Conference action in Lexington.
Kentucky (17-8, 8-4 SEC), which hasn’t lost at home to Georgia since March 2009, will also try to flush a nine-point road setback to then-No. 14 Florida — a game in which the Wildcats never led. The Wildcats have still won eight of their last 10 and are in a four-way tie for third in the SEC.
After falling behind by 15 points early on Saturday, Kentucky scored 49 second-half points to make things interesting before falling 92-83 against the Gators. Even in a loss, head coach Mark Pope’s team looked completely different from its 5-4 start in early December.
“Our guys are always resilient,” Pope said. “That’s who we are. I’m not surprised about (the rally). That’s our expectation. Our guys are fighters and they’re not going to stop. They’re not going to sit down. We just weren’t quite good enough.”
Helping key the Wildcats’ resurgence has been the play of sophomore Collin Chandler. The sharpshooting guard is Kentucky’s leader in 3-pointers made (50) and 3-point percentage (42.7). Chandler is averaging 10.3 points and shooting 46.4% from distance in SEC play.
“I just think I’ve been put in positions that I can be successful in. Positions I’m comfortable in,” Chandler said. “I think the biggest thing is I’m not doing anything out of the ordinary that we don’t do in practice every day.”
Otega Oweh leads Kentucky at 17.0 points per game, while Denzel Aberdeen adds 12.5 points per contest.
Meanwhile, Georgia (17-8, 5-7) is nearing desperation mode in a fight for its NCAA Tournament life. The Bulldogs began the season 16-3 and 4-2 in conference play, but have since dropped five of six, including a pivotal meltdown in a 16-point loss at Oklahoma on Saturday.
Georgia led by seven in the opening minutes of the second half against Oklahoma, but allowed the Sooners to score 53 points after halftime and drill 14 triples as they won just their third SEC game of the season.
“We had a couple of really poor offensive possessions that led to some open threes for them in transition, and that was it,” Georgia head coach Mike White said. “That was it. Never got into a rhythm defensively the entire game. We did a very poor job defending the three.”
Georgia ranks seventh in the nation with 90.3 points per game, but has played the last two games without leading scorer Jeremiah Wilkinson (17.1 ppg), who’s been sidelined with a shoulder injury.
With Wilkinson’s status uncertain going forward, White says it’s on his staff to pull his team out of the current rut.
“We need to challenge these guys, encourage these guys, educate these guys,” White said. “We’ve just got to make more winning plays. It starts with me and our staff helping these guys understand how that looks. … We made some plays (on Saturday) that represent not understanding how to win on the road in the SEC.”
Behind Wilkinson, Blue Cain is averaging 13.6 points per game and Marcus Millender chips in 12.0.
