Kentucky's descent into a lost season continued Wednesday with a last-second loss to Georgia.
The Bulldogs' P.J. Horne scored on an out-of-bounds play with 1.3 seconds remaining to give Georgia a 63-62 win over the Wildcats at Stegeman Coliseum in Athens.
It marked Georgia's first win over Kentucky in the last 15 meetings and may have driven a spike through the Wildcats' fading postseason hopes barring a miracle run through the SEC Tournament.
Kentucky (4-9, 3-3 SEC) is off to the third-worst start to a season in program history. The only two teams to post worst records pre-dated Hall of Fame coach Adolph Rupp in 1927 (2-11) and 1923 (3-10).
"I need somebody to talk to me because I'm discouraged," UK coach John Calipari said when asked what he told the team after another heartbreaking loss. "What I just saw... the way we finished the game... the shot selection at the end... missed free throws, turnovers... just throw the ball to them for layups. We gave them 20 points on turnovers just throwing them the ball."
The Wildcats held a 56-49 lead with 7:13 remaining, charging from behind with a 14-2 run with the help of a flagrant foul and a technical foul against the Bulldogs.
Georgia, however, countered with a 14-6 run to close the game.
Three UK turnovers and a missed front end of a one-and-one situation by freshman guard Devin Askew with 23 seconds remaining helped the Bulldogs dig out of the hole. UGA got a long 3-pointer from K.D. Johnson and layups from Andrew Garcia and Horne in the final two minutes to seal the victory.
On the game-winner, Horne came out of UGA's stack set, took the inbounds pass and momentarily fumbled the ball, but managed to split three UK defenders and get off a layup on the right side of the backboard without an issue.
"I know it’s a great experience to hit a game-winner, and that was my first in collegiate basketball, so it definitely ranks up there," Horne said.
"The last play, I tell them you can't get screened on this. One guy gets screened," Calipari lamented. "And then they got it in and the guy fumbled it, but nobody blocked it. We just gave him a layup. C'mon. We gotta be better."
Kentucky's season of horrific offensive play continued with a 42% shooting night, a 1-for-13 effort from the 3-point arc, and 17 turnovers. The Cats' starters managed only 16 combined points in the game.
Freshman B.J. Boston came off the UK bench for the first time this season to score a game-high 18 points. Sophomore forward Keion Brooks Jr. and freshman forward Isaiah Jackson each added 12 points for the Cats.
Garcia led Georgia (9-4, 2-4 SEC) with 16 points, while Johnson and Sahvir Wheeler each chipped in with 10.
“Losing like that is tough, especially when we had a pretty good lead," UK sophomore forward Keion Brooks Jr. said. "We were up six with under three minutes. We basically just gave the game away, which is tough. We got to continue to work on not beating ourselves, executing the game plan. This loss sucks, but we have a short turnaround. We have another game on Saturday and we have to do what we can to get that one.”
*****
RAPID RECAP:
Among Kentucky's nine losses this season, this one may stand as the worst. It's a toss-up between tonight's L and the 17-point beating UK took from the Bulldogs' Peach State rivals, Georgia Tech, on Dec. 6. Once again, the Wildcats could not get out of their own way, committing 17 turnovers in a slow-paced game that led to 25 points for Georgia, a bad basketball team that shot (39% FG, 25% 3PFG) like one would expect a bad basketball team to shoot. Somehow, Kentucky managed to build a 56-49 lead with 7:13 remaining, but the Cats took the air out of the ball, forced bad shots at the end of the shot clock, turned the ball over three times, missed the front end of a one-and-one, and managed only six points the rest of the way.
GAME BALL:
Andrew Garcia, Georgia -- The Bulldogs' undersized power forward scored 16 points on 8-for-12 shooting from the floor and came up with a key bucket with 34 seconds remaining to pull UGA within one and set up the game-winner.
KEY STAT:
Georgia scored 25 points off 17 Kentucky turnovers, a recurring theme in the Wildcats' frustrating season. Forty percent of the Bulldogs' points came directly from UK miscues.
QUOTABLE:
"Our guard play was awful." -- UK coach John Calipari
UP NEXT:
Kentucky returns to action Saturday at Rupp Arena against LSU. The Tigers (10-3, 5-2 SEC) are coming off a 105-75 loss to Alabama on Tuesday in which the league-leading Crimson Tide made a conference-record 23 3-point shots. Tipoff for the Cats and Bayou Bengals is 6 ET on ESPN.
