Cats escape pesky Bulldogs, win 76-68

They never lost a nonconference game, but they almost began the conference slate 0-1.

The Cats (16-0, 1-0 Southeastern Conference) could never establish a convincing lead against a Georgia squad that refused to go away, but finally pulled out a 76-68 win thanks in part to the play of freshman forward DeMarcus Cousins.

“Well, I guess that’s welcome to the SEC,” UK head coach John Calipari said. “… They never quit playing and that’s what happens in this league and that was at home, I can’t imagine how that will be on the road … My hat is off to them because we were fortunate to get out with a win.”

The Cats opened up an 11-point lead in the first half at 21-10, which ended up being their largest of the game, before Georgia went on a 21-5 run to take a 31-26 lead that they carried into halftime.

The Cats and Bulldogs exchanged the lead a dozen times throughout the game and freshman guard Eric Bledsoe said it reminded him of the Louisville game in its physicality.

“We just had to come out and play hard,” Bledsoe said. “We were lackadaisical in the first half and in the second half just came out hustling and got better.”

The Cats struggled to find their shooting stroke throughout the game, going 2-14 from deep, 22-33 at the foul line and shot 43.3 percent from the field.

“Sometimes we make it, sometimes we don’t” junior forward Patrick Patterson said. “Even if we can’t make threes we know that we have the power game inside in DeMarcus (Cousins), myself, Daniel (Orton) and so forth. So if the three is not falling we know we other teammates can score in other ways.”

Down the stretch, UK looked to DeMarcus Cousins time and time again to get points on the board.

“He was a beast, we were throwing it to him every single time,” Calipari said.

With 13:36 to go in the game, Cousins went up for a layup and in the process got fouled and had his headband fall off. Cousins threw it to the sideline and shot the two foul shots with it off, making one of two. Almost six minutes later, Cousins rejected a shot by Georgia forward Chris Barnes and screamed to the crowd applauding its approval.

After the headband toss, Cousins scored 10 points and grabbed four rebounds and made clutch free throws down the stretch of the game. Georgia, in trying to stop the big man from Mobile, Ala., had three forwards foul out of the game. Cousins said everyone on Georgia’s team should have fouled out.

“They got away with a lot of fouls,” Cousins said. “I mean, we pulled through with the win and that’s all that matters, but they did get away with a lot.

“I’m pretty cut up.”

Cousins helped ice the game for UK with a layup with 36.8 seconds remaining to put the Cats up by four. On the ensuing possession Cousins grabbed a rebound off a missed Georgia 3-pointer and got it to John Wall to finish out the game.

UK used a balanced scoring attack with four players reaching double digits to beat the Bulldogs. Wall and junior forward Patrick Patterson led the way for the Cats with 17 points each. Cousins finished with 16 points and Bledsoe had 12.

Despite outrebounding the Cats 36-33 and shooting at a higher clip, the Bulldogs couldn’t close the deal on UK thanks to 26 turnovers.

“Again, our will to win at the end showed,” Calipari said. “You know what? If they hadn’t turned it over so much we would have been down 15 at halftime. They turned it over. That’s the only reason we were in the game.”