Kentucky's comeback bid falls short in 86-78 loss to visiting Georgia

LEXINGTON, Ky. — Home in Lexington and hoping to get back in the winning column, the Kentucky Wildcats let an opportunity slip away Tuesday night.

In one of the few games remaining on the schedule that they were supposed to win, the Cats turned in a lackluster performance against the Georgia Bulldogs, falling 86-78 in Rupp Arena for their second consecutive defeat.

The loss came three days after Mark Pope’s team dropped a game at now-No. 12 Florida, that defeat ending a run in which UK had won eight of its previous nine games and climbed back into the Top 25 for the first time in more than two months. With the loss to Georgia, Kentucky fell to 17-9 and 8-5 in the SEC.

Georgia (18-8, 6-7 SEC) was supposed to be one of the easiest games left on Kentucky’s schedule. The only other one in which the Cats are expected to be favored — with five more games on the slate — is next week’s trip to South Carolina.

UK will need to win two more games to finish at better than .500 in league play.

With Kentucky struggling to secure the ball — the Cats committed 13 turnovers and were outscored 22-9 on points off turnovers for the game — Georgia built a 69-57 lead as the clock ticked inside 10 minutes.

The Dogs were still up 81-72 inside the final four minutes, and that’s when Kentucky made one more last-ditch effort at a comeback.

Denzel Aberdeen nailed a 3-pointer to cut the Dogs’ lead to six points. He then drew a foul and made the first free throw before missing the second, but Georgia couldn’t corral the defensive rebound, and the ball bounced out of bounds, leaving the possession with Kentucky.

Aberdeen was then fouled on a 3-point attempt, hitting two of those free throws and cutting the Bulldogs’ lead to 81-78, the first time in more than 10 minutes that it had been a one-possession game.

Kentucky then forced a shot-clock violation on the other end, and a Rupp Arena crowd that had grown disgruntled as the second progressed was on its feet to see if the Cats could pull off another improbable comeback.

Mouhamed Dioubate grabbed two offensive rebounds on the ensuing possession, but UK got no points out of that trip, with an Otega Oweh turnover handing the ball back to the Dogs.

Somto Cyril, a former UK recruit, hit a shot on the other end to extend Georgia’s lead to 83-78 with 43 seconds left, and some of the Kentucky fans who’d been standing in anticipation of a comeback victory started heading for the Rupp exits.

Kentucky missed its final five shots from the field and didn’t make another field goal after Aberdeen’s 3 to make it an 81-75 game with 3:03 remaining.

Oweh tied his career high with 28 points and Collin Chandler tied his with 18 points, hitting six 3-pointers and providing a major spark for the Cats’ comeback attempt. Aberdeen had 14 points.

Blue Cain scored 20 points for the Bulldogs, who got 19 more from Jeremiah Wilkinson. Cyril added 14 points and eight rebounds for the visitors. Georgia was 14 for 31 on 3-pointers.

It wasn’t a stellar first half for the Wildcats, who led for most of it but could never fully distance themselves from the Bulldogs.

Kentucky took its first lead on an Oweh 3-pointer about two minutes into the period — building that advantage up to eight points on two separate occasions — and never trailed again until Marcus “Smurf” Millender hit a 3 to put Georgia ahead 34-31 with 3:25 to go until halftime.

That shot by Millender came amid a closing flurry that saw the Dogs outscore UK 17-5 over the final five minutes and change of the first half.

Cyril tallied eight points and three rebounds during that run, which ended on a 3-pointer by Wilkinson with just four seconds remaining on the clock. That one gave Georgia a 39-34 halftime lead, the Bulldogs’ biggest of the night to that point. It was the 13th time in 19 games against high-major competition this season that Kentucky was trailing at the break.

The Bulldogs extended that lead to 42-34 with another 3-pointer on the first possession of the second half. The Wildcats committed seven turnovers in the first half, and Georgia won the points off turnovers battle 10-3 before halftime.

UK was playing once again without Jaland Lowe, Jayden Quaintance and Kam Williams, who all remained sidelined with injuries. Lowe (shoulder) is out for the season, and there’s no timetable for Quaintance (knee) or Williams (foot) to return to the court, with the possibility remaining that neither Wildcat plays again this season.

Georgia had its full allotment of players. Wilkinson, the team’s leading scorer and top 3-point shooter, missed the previous two games — double-digit losses to Oklahoma and Florida — due to a shoulder injury, but he made his return Tuesday night.

Kentucky will hit the road again this weekend, heading to Auburn for a matchup with first-year coach Steven Pearl and the Tigers, who are 14-11 overall and 5-7 in the SEC this season. That game is set for 8:30 p.m. ET Saturday and will be televised on either ESPN or ESPN2.