First Scouting Report: Can Kentucky extend the misery for Georgia and Tom Crean?
An early look ahead to the Kentucky Wildcats’ next men’s basketball game:
The opponent
No. 16 Kentucky (11-3, 1-1 SEC) will face Georgia (5-9, 0-1 SEC) Saturday, Jan. 8 at Rupp Arena at Central Bank Center (capacity 20,545) in downtown Lexington:
The game will tip off at 6 p.m. (EST) and be telecast on the SEC Network.
Coach Tom Crean’s Bulldogs lost 81-79 to Texas A&M on Tuesday night in Athens.
Series history
Kentucky leads the all-time series with Georgia 129-27 and has won 17 of the past 19 meetings.
Most recent meeting
Georgia’s Sahvir Wheeler had 10 points and seven assists and Andrew Garcia contributed 16 points and six rebounds as the Bulldogs snapped a 13-game losing streak vs. Kentucky with a come-from-behind 63-62 victory over UK on Jan. 20, 2021, at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens.
Power rankings
Through Monday’s games, the NCAA’s NET Rankings had Kentucky No. 15 and Georgia No. 243.
The Kenpom Rankings rated UK No. 8 and Georgia No. 216.
Kentucky stood No. 10 in the Sagarin Ratings with Georgia No. 184.
Know your foe
1. Kentucky point guard Sahvir Wheeler is slated to go up against his old team. The 5-foot-9, 180-pound junior played his first two seasons for Georgia.
A Houston product, Wheeler averaged 9 points and 4.5 assists for the 16-16 Bulldogs as a freshman in 2019-20. Last season, as Georgia went 14-12, Wheeler produced averages of 14 points and an SEC-best 7.4 assists.
Wheeler, however, was knocked to the floor during UK’s contest at LSU on Tuesday night after running hard into a pick that he did not see with 16:07 left in the first half. After being down for a protracted period, Wheeler was escorted off the floor by two UK support staffers.
So it seems uncertain whether he will be able to play against his former team Saturday.
2. Georgia Coach Tom Crean holds a unique distinction: He is the only coach in the country who can claim to have beaten the past three Kentucky men’s basketball coaches in NCAA Tournament games.
In the 2003 NCAA Tournament round of eight, Crean’s Marquette team — led by an emerging superstar named Dwyane Wade — hung a painful 83-69 defeat on Tubby Smith’s No. 1-ranked Wildcats.
It snapped a 26-game Kentucky win streak.
Crean and Marquette spoiled Billy Gillispie’s sole NCAA tourney game as UK head man, beating the Wildcats 74-66 in the 2008 NCAA tourney round of 64.
Marquette won in spite of 35 points from UK guard Joe Crawford.
Crean had moved to Indiana when he coached the Hoosiers past John Calipari and the Cats 73-67 in the 2016 NCAA Tournament round of 32.
Overall, Crean is 5-7 in his career overall vs. Kentucky — 2-0 at Marquette; 2-4 at Indiana; and 1-3 at Georgia — but 3-1 against the Wildcats when it matters most in the NCAA Tournament.
UK’s only Big Dance success vs. Crean came when Kentucky’s eventual 2012 NCAA championship team beat Indiana 102-90 in the round of 16.
3. Georgia has struggled mightily in 2021-22, leading to ample speculation over how firm Crean’s hold on his job is.
After Tuesday night’s loss to Texas A&M, the Bulldogs are 0-4 this season vs. power-conference foes, having also lost to Georgia Tech (88-78) and Virginia (65-55) from the ACC and Northwestern of the Big Ten (78-62).
Perhaps more distressingly, Georgia has lost home games to Wofford (68-65), George Mason (80-67), East Tennessee State (86-84) and our old friends from Gardner-Webb (77-60).
The Bulldogs’ one shining moment this season came on Dec. 1, an 82-79 upset of Memphis in Athens.
Crean — in his fourth season at Georgia — is 46-58 as Bulldogs head coach.
This story was originally published January 4, 2022 at 9:18 PM.
