The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Bulldogs could use a rare win at Rupp
Georgia travels to always tough Kentucky on a roll.
Brent Musberger will wrap up his storied broadcasting career tonight as he calls a basketball game for Kentucky, whose rabid fan base will surely send him out warmly at its own storied venue, Rupp Arena.
It will be ESPN’s primetime game. Georgia’s basketball team will be there too.
Of course, merely showing up will arguably be more than the Bulldogs did in their last trip to Lexington. They were embarrassed 82-48 at Rupp last year, which by no means made them the first team to suffer badly there.
Kentucky has an “edge” of 59-5 against Georgia in Rupp, as UGA’s game notes delicately put it. The last six visits have seen the Bulldogs lose by 34, 11, 25, 30, 6 and 12.
Pete Herrmann, then coaching Georgia on an interim basis, was the last UGA coach to win at Rupp Arena, triumphing in 2009 at the tail end of the ill-fated Billy Gillispie era.
Georgia has been competitive with the Wildcats lately, leading them in the second half at last year’s SEC tournament semifinals and two years ago at Stegeman Coliseum. And you can probably win a bar bet by asking someone to name the only two programs to make it to each of the past three SEC semifinals: Kentucky ... and Georgia.
But there is a chasm between the programs and nowhere has it been more evident than in Rupp Arena. Georgia junior forward Yante Maten was asked if this team could be more competitive this time.
“Yeah, we can. We can,” Maten said. “We’ve just got to make sure we play our basketball. Don’t be rattled. Be calm. And take it for what it is: another game.”
But a game that will again be exceedingly difficult to win.
Georgia (13-8, 4-4 in the SEC) is a 16.5-point underdog, according to Vegasinsider. com. The Bulldogs enter having lost three of their past five, barely escaping Saturday with a two-point win over Texas.
Kentucky (17-4, 7-1) is on a two-game slide after losing at Tennessee and then at home to Kansas. That can’t help the Bulldogs’ cause — the Wildcats will surely be motivated.
Georgia has plenty to play for too. A victory would resuscitate its flagging NCAA tournament hopes. Hope isn’t gone, but a loss — by one point or by 34 — would mean yet another missed chance for the kind of breakthrough win coach Mark Fox and his team haven’t yet had.
Fox, in talking about Kentucky’s elite guards last Saturday, still had a sense of humor.
“D’Aaron Fox and I are not related,” Fox said. “But he got the family quickness.”
He was in a good mood because his team had just ended a two-game losing streak. But it was by no means a hugely impressive win. And Fox knew that.
“We’ll have to play much better than we played (against Texas) to give us a chance to win,” he said.
Georgia’s victory over Texas was hardly anything to crow about: a 59-57 win over a team with a losing record (8-13). It will not do much on Georgia’s resume.
But it was therapeutic for the Bulldogs, who had endured a difficult two weeks: an overtime loss at Florida in what would have been a season-changing win; the clock malfunction debacle at Texas A&M after blowing a 9-point lead with two minutes left; and then a 20-point drubbing at home against an average Alabama team.