The Georgia Bulldogs may have given Kentucky's basketball team its last decent test this season inside Rupp Arena.
Despite missing leading scorer Marcus Thornton due to a concussion, Georgia rallied exactly one month ago from an 18-point deficit to pull within 63-58 with a little more than two minutes remaining. The Wildcats answered with the final six points to close out a 69-58 victory, but Kentucky has since grabbed leads of more than 30 points against the overwhelmed visiting trio of South Carolina, Auburn and Arkansas.
Georgia head coach Mark Fox watches the action against Mississippi during an NCAA college basketball game Wednesday, Feb. 25, 2015 in Oxford, Miss.Kentucky did host the Bulldogs without freshman forward Trey Lyles, who torched Arkansas this past Saturday for 18 points on 8-of-10 shooting.
"Looking back at it, I don't think Kentucky probably played very well," Georgia coach Mark Fox said Monday. "They're a different team with Lyles in the game, and I think that's obvious. We'll be a little different with Marcus, but we're not looking back at the first game, because I think we're both in a different place.
"We got it close in the end, but that game wasn't close. They whipped us pretty good."
One of the Southeastern Conference's better teams gets a second crack at the nation's best team tonight when the Bulldogs (19-9, 10-6) host No. 1 Kentucky (29-0, 16-0). The game is scheduled to tip shortly after 9 on ESPN.
Kentucky coach John Calipari isn't putting too much stock in last month's matchup, either, focusing instead on the challenges Fox can present no matter what the year.
"He may come out and play zone (defense)," Calipari said. "He may come out and play man, or he may come out and sag. You don't know what he's going to do. He's looked at the tape, and he's going to try and exploit us defensively. He is one of those coaches who that when we walk in, we better be ready.
"He's one of the toughest ones I've gone against in 20-something years."
Though Georgia is on track to have its best team in Fox's six seasons, there have been setbacks. Thornton, the senior forward who averages a team-high 12.3 points per game, has been joined by sophomore guard J.J. Frazier and freshman center/forward Yante Maten as Bulldogs who have missed time with concussion-like symptoms.
There has been an adjustment period when each has returned, and Georgia enters tonight having won at Alabama and at Ole Miss and having throttled visiting Missouri 68-44 this past Saturday.
"We don't know how good we can be, because we haven't been healthy," Frazier told reporters Saturday. "It feels good to know that we have more potential to tap."
That tapping will be needed tonight, according to one SEC coach, if the Wildcats finally are to fall.
"If Georgia is going to pull it off, they're going to have to be awfully good," Vanderbilt's Kevin Stallings said. "There are not a lot of holes in that Kentucky team, and their depth and effort level are incredible. Georgia will have to be the best that Georgia can possibly be."
Contact David Paschall at dpaschall@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6524.