Kentucky basketball undone by sloppy play in upset loss to Georgia
· Yahoo Sports
LEXINGTON — Georgia certainly didn't enter Tuesday as a better team than Kentucky basketball.
The Bulldogs were losers of five of their last six; the Wildcats were 4-2 in that same span, with their setbacks on the road to two of the best the SEC has to offer in Florida and Vanderbilt.
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But what mattered more than record or recent play Tuesday?
UGA was simply more desperate, living life on the bubble as a club that would be sweating out Selection Sunday if it were tomorrow.
Georgia brought energy and intensity. Kentucky couldn't match either.
It added up to a disappointing — and unexpected — 86-78 defeat for coach Mark Pope and the Wildcats at Rupp Arena.
Kentucky (17-9, 8-5 SEC) did itself no favors on multiple fronts.
Among them:
- UK committed 13 turnovers, which Georgia (18-8, 6-7) converted into 22 points;
- The Wildcats' bench was almost invisible, contributing just eight points, a far cry from Georgia's reserves, who combined for 29;
- Most surprisingly, Kentucky couldn't find a way to limit Georgia's 3-point shooting. UGA was barely inside the top 300 nationally in 3-point percentage, knocking down only 31.7% of its attempts on the season. But in Tuesday's upset triumph, Georgia connected on 45.2% (14 for 31) of its triples — not only its best effort against a league opponent in 2025-26, but its highest percentage versus any power conference foe this season.
Tuesday marked the Bulldogs' first win in Lexington since 2009.
It also was their third victory over the Wildcats in the past four meetings, marking only the second time Georgia has topped Kentucky three times in a four-game span. The other instance was more than a century ago: After UK won the first-ever meeting on March 1, 1921, Georgia took the next three.
The Bulldogs haven't had a three-game win streak in the series since.
To add further frustration for UK, it wasted career-best efforts from Otega Oweh and Collin Chandler. Oweh matched his personal high with 28 points (equaling last season's tally in a road win over Oklahoma) while Chandler nailed six 3s, a single-game high for the sophomore.
This story will be updated.
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Reach Kentucky men’s basketball and football reporter Ryan Black at [email protected] and follow him on X at @RyanABlack.
This article originally appeared on Louisville Courier Journal: Kentucky basketball vs Georgia score, UK Wildcats upset by Bulldogs