Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 63-62 come-from-ahead loss to Georgia
Five things you need to know from Kentucky’s 63-62 loss to Georgia on Wednesday at Stegeman Coliseum:
1. Kentucky had victory in its grasp and gave it way. The Cats failed to close.
UK went up 62-56 when Isaiah Jackson hit a 6-footer with 2:02 left in the game.
A K.D. Johnson three-pointer with 1:49 left cut the Cats lead to three.
After a John Calipari timeout with 1:01 left, Brandon Boston missed a jump shot.
Georgia pulled within one on an Andrew Garcia layup with 33 seconds left.
The Bulldogs appeared to deliberately foul UK freshman point guard Devin Askew with 23 seconds left.
An 82.1-percent foul shooter entering the game, Askew missed the front of the bonus.
Still down one, Georgia held the ball to take the final shot. Sahvir Wheeler’s runner in the lane was blocked emphatically out of bounds by UK’s Jackson with 3.6 seconds left.
Had Jackson blocked the ball with less force toward the corner, UK’s Askew could have recovered and Kentucky would have had the win.
Instead, after coaches Crean, Calipari and Crean again exchanged timeouts, Wheeler inbounded the ball from underneath the Georgia basket.
UK’s Jackson got his hand on the inbounds pass, but it went to Georgia’s P.J. Horne who laid it in with one second left to give Georgia the victory.
2. Brandon Boston’s happy homecoming ruined. After a slog of a freshman season, it turns out all the highly regarded product of Norcross, Ga., needed to have a breakout performance was to return to his home state — and to come off the bench instead of start.
A 34.7 percent shooter entering the game, Boston found his shot in Athens. In his best game of the season, the 6-foot-7, 185-pound freshman hit nine of 17 shots for 18 points.
In one of those cases where the game “appeared to slow down” for a player, Boston made clever work coming off screens and took better shots than he often has this season.
He also contributed on the glass with seven rebounds and only had one turnover.
3. Dontaie Allen made his first career start. The reason Boston was not in the starting lineup was because ex-Pendleton County star Allen (and true freshman Lance Ware) were inserted in the UK starting lineup
It was the 10th different starting lineup used this season by a searching Calipari.
Georgia paid ample attention to Allen on the perimeter which may have helped open things up for others, especially Keion Brooks and Isaiah Jackson, who each scored 12 points.
However, Allen took only three shots in 22 minutes and finished the game with three points, three rebounds and two turnovers.
4. Turnovers killed the Cats again. After turning the ball over 19 times in its loss to Alabama and 18 times in defeat at Auburn, Kentucky lost it 17 times in Athens.
As a result, the Bulldogs outscored the Wildcats 25-11 on points after turnovers.
With greater ball security, UK would have won going away.
Askew had an especially rough go with five turnovers.
5. More dubious history for UK. Georgia’s victory snapped a 14-game losing streak for the Bulldogs vs. the Wildcats.
Before Wednesday night, the Bulldogs’ most-recent victory over the Wildcats came with Mark Fox as head coach on March 7, 2013, in Athens by a count of 72-62.
Of course, 2013 is also the last time UK missed the NCAA Tournament.
This story was originally published January 20, 2021 at 9:22 PM.
