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 But it wasn't easy.
Trailing by as many as nine points midway through the second half,
Kentucky (30-0, 17-0 SEC) found itself behind by six points, 62-56,
with 5:36 remaining. But from that point forward, Kentucky outscored
Georgia 16-2, including a 14-0 spurt, to secure the victory.
"You have kids here that have a will to win," Kentucky coach John
Calipari said. "They believe they're going to win."
Sophomore guard Aaron Harrison started the run with a breakaway
layup after a steal by junior forward Willie Cauley-Stein. Harrison
was fouled on the play and missed his free throw, but Cauley-Stein
grabbed the offensive rebound and dunked.
"We're not trying to protect being undefeated," Aaron Harrison said.
"We're not playing not to lose."
"We fight for each other," freshman center Karl-Anthony Towns added.
"We don't fight for the record."
Towns scored six of Kentucky's next 12 points. Harrison added three
points and freshman guard Devin Booker closed the book with two free
throws with nine seconds remaining.
The game featured 10 ties and 17 lead changes.
"When we were down nine, I was hoping it would get to 10," Calipari
said. "We learn from everything and we needed to find out who's who.
Who's going to make plays? I kept saying, 'Scared money don't make
no money.'"
Towns paced Kentucky with 19 points, tying a career high, and hit 8
of 12 shots. Seventeen of the 19 came in the second half during 15
minutes of playing time. Aaron Harrison added 16 and twin brother
Andrew Harrison had 12.
"They're starting to become empowered," Calipari said. "When we
broke a timeout huddle, they huddled up again on the court. That's
what I want to see. I don't want them relying so much on me. I want
to get out of the way."
Georgia (18-10, 9-7) was paced by senior forward Nemanja Djurisic
with 18 points on 7-of-11 shooting from the field. Senior forward
Marcus Thornton added 14 points and junior guard Kenny Gaines added
11.
"We played hard. We played very well. But we didn't play perfect,"
Georgia coach Mark Fox said. "And they are so dang good that you
almost have to play perfect. And that's not realistic."
Kentucky faced a packed, hostile house and a "black out" student
section. The result was a frustrating first half for the Wildcats.
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Going more than five minutes without a field goal late in the first
half, Kentucky found itself trailing Georgia 27-25. But that's when
Andrew Harrison took over.
The point guard scored seven straight points to push Kentucky on top
32-27 with 2:00 remaining before halftime. He hit a 3-pointer, made
a steal and hit two free throws after a flagrant foul by Kenny
Gaines. Next, Harrison hit a step-back jumper to give Kentucky the
five-point lead.
Georgia, however, charged back before intermission to tie the game,
32-32, with its own 5-0 spurt -- a free throw by forward Yante
Maten, a layup by guard Charles Mann and a drive at the buzzer by
Djurisic.
"Georgia is good; they're an NCAA Tournament team," Calipari said.
"We didn't play that bad."
Kentucky made just 33.3 percent of its shots in the first half and
was outrebounded 24-19. Georgia rallied from a slow start to make 43
percent of its field-goal attempts despite going 1-for-8 from
3-point range.
NOTES: Kentucky, which clinched the regular-season Southeastern
Conference title with Saturday's win over Arkansas, now has 46 SEC
regular-season championships. The rest of the league combined has
49. ... Kentucky has faced six ranked opponents this season, winning
all six by an average margin of 17.2 points. ... Of 1,175 minutes
played this year, Kentucky has been in the lead 88 percent of the
time. ... Georgia has now won 10 or more SEC games two years in a
row. That happened only one other time in school history, 2002-03.
... Georgia is now 0-17 against No. 1-ranked teams.
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