FINAL: Kentucky struggles in final exhibition, falls to Georgetown 84-70

The highs and lows of preseason basketball were felt on Thursday night in Rupp Arena.

Less than a week after dominating top-ranked Purdue in the first exhibition, Kentucky was on the receiving end of a similar performance by Georgetown in the second. The Hoyas came out hot and never looked back, running away with an 84-70 win over the Wildcats in a game that never truly felt close.

Down starting guards Jaland Lowe and Denzel Aberdeen due to injury, Kentucky looked like a team struggling to find a flow on offense. UK shot just 33.3 percent from the field, 23.3 percent from deep, and an especially poor 65.7 percent from the free-throw line. The defense wasn’t any better, either. Georgetown had three players score 14 or more points, led by a game-high 22 from Malik Mack, finishing the night with a 55.4 percent shooting clip as a team.

Otega Oweh paced the Wildcats with 17 points (4-12 FG; 8-11 FT) and three rebounds, while Mo Dioubate chipped in 13 points and seven boards of his own. Collin Chandler, taking over a majority of the point guard duties, contributed 11 points and seven rebounds, although he shot just 2-9 from the field and turned the ball over five times.

The good news? This one doesn’t count in the record books. The bad news? Kentucky didn’t look anything like the team that ran Purdue out of the gym last week.

Down a pair of primary ball handlers, Kentucky’s offense wasn’t organized early on. Chandler and Jasper Johnson both traded turns running the show, but it was the bigs — Malachi Moreno and Andrija Jelavić — that were making plays through the first 10 minutes. Brandon Garrison and Dioubate even canned three-pointers to keep the scoring rolling. But halfway through the opening half, Georgetown was holding onto a 21-19 lead as UK was shooting just 37 percent from the field and missing far too many free throws.

The Hoyas used their physicality to take full control of the game from there. Mack, who had 14 points (6-9 FG) by halftime, was in a groove. Georgetown soon broke out a double-digit lead as Kentucky’s defense was bleeding points. Chandler’s three-pointer right before the break made it a 46-39 lead for the road team, but Georgetown was shooting 56.3 percent from the field while UK missed over half of its free throws — it was that kind of night through 20 minutes.

That momentum would carry over into the second half for the Hoyas, too. Georgetown jumped out to a quick 14-point lead not even four minutes into the half, which eventually ballooned to as many as 17 points. Kentucky did manage to get the game within 10, igniting a Rupp Arena crowd that didn’t have much to cheer about until this point, but just couldn’t slice the deficit down to single digits. With roughly four minutes left in regulation, the stands began to filter out.

The takes will be flying throughout the Big Blue Nation after this loss, but an exhibition is still an exhibition. The real thing begins on Tuesday when Kentucky returns home for the season-opener against Nicholls at 7:00 p.m. ET on the SEC Network+.