Livescore
Three days removed from a thrilling shootout to take down one of the final undefeated teams in college basketball, No. 6 Kentucky suffered a letdown on the road with an 82-69 defeat at Georgia on Tuesday to fall to 1-1 in SEC play. The Wildcats played like you might expect a team that just went 10 rounds vs. an SEC heavyweight three days prior would play, finishing with 14 turnovers and shooting a woeful 6 of 25 from 3-point range while missing 40 of their 64 field goal attempts.
The win for Georgia is its third consecutive win over Big Blue in Athens and its first win over a top-10 team since Jan. 4, 2020, when it beat Memphis 65-62. It gets the Bulldogs back on track after its second loss of the season on Saturday to Ole Miss and improves their record to 13-2 — one game off pace of tying for the program’s best start through 15 games.
Georgia took the lead midway through the first half and never relinquished it behind a balanced attack from Dawgs both young and old. Star freshman Asa Newell led the team with 17 points and added a pair of assists and seven blocks, while sophomores Blue Cain and Silas Demary added 15 and 14 points of their own, respectively. Senior Dakota Leffew also finished in double figures with 11 points.
The size and physical presence of Somto Cyril paid big dividends for UGA in this one as well. Cyril fouled out after playing just 18 minutes but had eight rebounds, a block and several putbacks that got Stegeman Coliseum rocking early in the game.
After scoring 106 on Saturday vs. Florida led by Koby Brea and Lamont Butler, UK went stretches in this one where it could not buy a bucket. Its last field goal of the game, for instance, came at the 4:05 mark in the second half, and there was a span of more than five game minutes midway through the second half where UK uncharacteristically did not make a field goal.
Otega Oweh finished with 12 points and Lamont Butler had 20, but the two combined to go 0 of 6 from 3-point range, while Brea — who could not miss vs. Florida — finished 2 of 9 from distance.
Such is life in the remade, and more challenging, SEC. And things won’t get easier for either team moving forward. Kentucky goes back on the road Saturday where it will likely be an underdog vs. Mississippi State. Georgia, meanwhile, gets Oklahoma on short rest for Saturday before facing the two-game terror gauntlet of Tennessee and Auburn in a four-day span starting next Wednesday.
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