Kentucky basketball’s first two SEC games came with a warning. Expect more to come.
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Game day: Georgia 82, No. 6 Kentucky 69
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Tuesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Georgia in Athens, Georgia.
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He tried to warn you. We tried to warn you. Mark Pope said it. We typed it. With the way the SEC has morphed into a big, bad basketball league for this 2024-25 season, the conference schedule is such that each league team will experience some massive highs and some crushing lows.
Last Saturday’s win over Florida was a massive high for these Kentucky Wildcats. I wouldn’t necessarily call Tuesday night’s 82-69 loss at Georgia a crushing low for these same Cats, but it wasn’t ideal.
“We were disappointed with our performance tonight,” said Pope afterward inside an auxiliary locker room at Stegeman Coliseum. “There’s a lot of things we’ve got to work on.”
Here’s the thing: Now 1-1 in league play, the Cats must travel to Starkville on Saturday to play 14th-ranked Mississippi State, which beat visiting South Carolina by 35 points (85-50) last week and host Vanderbilt by 12 (76-64) on Tuesday.
At least after that, the Cats can return to Rupp. What’s that? You say waiting at Rupp will be No. 10-ranked Texas A&M on Tuesday, then No. 5-ranked Alabama on Saturday. That’s the same Alabama that took previously unbeaten Oklahoma to the woodshed 107-79 last weekend.
We told you that this SEC slate will be brutal. How brutal? No. 1-ranked Tennessee, fresh off a 24-point win over John Calipari’s Arkansas Razorbacks last Saturday in Knoxville, scored all of 43 points Tuesday night in Gainesville. Florida scored 73 points for a 30-point win. Yikes.
Meanwhile, at Stegeman Coliseum, Kentucky got its first taste of SEC life on the road. It wasn’t pretty. The Cats trailed by 13 points at the half. The Cats that went 14-of-29 from 3-point land at home on Saturday, went 6-of-25 from beyond the arc on the road on Tuesday. Georgia grabbed 13 offensive rebounds. Georgia shot 38 free throws, and made 29. Kentucky couldn’t respond.
“Everyone plays better at home,” said UK’s Lamont Butler afterward.
True, seven of the SEC’s eight openers were won by the home team. Tuesday was Kentucky basketball’s third straight loss in Athens. Calipari lost to Tom Crean in 2021. He lost to Mike White in 2023. And now Pope has lost to White, whose Bulldogs improved to 13-2.
So if Pope says UK needs work, what does Kentucky need to work on?
Start with the glass. The Cats are now 156th nationally in offensive rebound percentage and 66th in defensive rebound percentage. True, the Cats did snatch 11 offensive rebounds of their own Tuesday, but it seemed like Georgia grabbed the key rebounds. It also seemed like Georgia was the more physical team, just as Ohio State was the more physical team in the Buckeyes’ 85-65 bashing of the Cats at the CBS Sports Classic in New York last month.
One first-half play stood out Tuesday: Somto Cyril, a 6-foot-11 freshman reserve center from Nigeria, grabbed an offensive rebound, then elbowed UK’s sophomore center Brandon Garrison out of the way before throwing down a thunder dunk that set the Stegeman crowd on fire.
Solution? “You just got to be dirty down there and get the rebound,” Garrison said afterward.
Next step: Get Jaxson Robinson going. Last year’s Big 12 Sixth Man of the Year is in a bit of a funk. After last Saturday’s win, Robinson returned to the Rupp Arena floor to get up some shots. Unfortunately, the extra work didn’t pay off. Robinson was 1-of-5 from the floor. All five attempts were from 3-point range. Robinson scored all of five points.
Through 15 games, Robinson is shooting 40.1 percent from the floor, 29.5 percent from 3-point range and averaging 11.6 points per game. He can be more productive than that. “He’s a shot-maker,” said Pope, who insisted he isn’t worried about his former BYU star.
Nor should BBN be too worried about this first SEC setback. It was one tough conference game in what will be a long line of tough conference games. (Welcome to the new SEC.) The key will be how Pope’s Cats respond. Can they bounce back? Will they bounce back? A bounce-back won’t be easy, given Saturday’s task in Starkville. It will be necessary.
This story was originally published January 8, 2025 at 8:42 AM.
