Georgia Basketball Drops Tough Road Game to Kentucky Despite Bulldog Heart
Career efforts by the Georgia basketball front line against Kentucky’s fleet of aircraft carriers was not enough to earn the Dawgs a win in Lexington.
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Georgia dropped a hard fought game to Kentucky in Lexington Tuesday night, 58-69.
Georgia opened the game with the same purposeless play seen in the loss to South Carolina. But after substituting early and often, the Dawg big men provided enough fight to keep Georgia in the same zip code as the Cats at halftime.
Houston Kessler started in Marcus Thornton’s spot and scored seven in the first half.
Yante Maten also scored seven and Nemi Djurisic led all scorers with nine. Of Georgia’s 27 half time points, the Georgia front line produced 23 points. Georgia opened the first half with much of the same, although J. J. Frazier did toss in two three pointers early to keep things from getting out of hand.
But things did get out of hand with the Bulldogs eventually sinking to 18 points down. The Bulldogs then called on their patented resilience — and defense — to continually cut the Wildcat lead. Each time the Bulldogs drew close, Andrew Harrison, who lead all scorers with 23 points, or Karl-Anthony Towns, who finished with 15 points, nudged Kentucky just out of striking range.
The consistent thread throughout Georgia’s 40 minute battle with the Big Blue Goliath was dominant rebounding. Led by the freshman Maten with nine rebounds, the Bulldogs out rebounded the sky scraping Kentucky front line 36-24.
Well RT @BDawsonRivals: Georgia just working Kentucky on the boards. Now a 27-13 rebounding edge.
— Radi Nabulsi (@RadiNabulsi) February 4, 2015
In the end though, the Cats and Andrew Harrison were too much for the Bulldogs. After closing the gap to five with two minutes to play, the Bulldogs drew no further.
The effort was impressive and those betting on a blow-out Georgia loss were also losers.
For the beleaguered Georgia squad, this was the impossible dream. It’s time for these Dawgs to get well, get some breaks, and start climbing the mountain again.