Oscar Tshiebwe's dominant performance powers Kentucky past Georgia, 85-71
Oscar Tshiebwe might need to add another shelf to his trophy cabinet.
On Tuesday night in Rupp Arena, the Kentucky Wildcats leaned on a masterclass performance from Tshiebwe, who exploded for 37 points and 24 rebounds, to blow past the Georgia Bulldogs, 85-71. After trailing by eight points at the break, Kentucky outscored UGA 51-29 in the second half to pick up its second straight victory. Per UK statistician Corey Price, Tshiebwe is the first Wildcat to register at least 30 points and 20 rebounds in a game since Mike Phillips in 1976.
Kentucky shot 44 percent overall from the floor and 23-30 from the free-throw line, outrebounding Georgia by 13, as well. Cason Wallace went for 17 points on 7-11 shooting while Jacob Toppin chipped in a double-double of 11 points and 11 rebounds. Antonio Reeves also added 11 points of his own.
After sitting out the win over Tennessee due to a shoulder injury, point guard Sahvir Wheeler returned to the rotation in an off-the-bench role. He played just 11 minutes, most of them coming in the first half, finishing with zero points and three assists.
The trend of slow starts unfortunately continued for Kentucky. Georgia sprung ahead to an early 7-2 lead before the ‘Cats found some rhythm. A crowd-amping dunk from Toppin pushed UK ahead 14-13 for the first time before UGA responded almost immediately with a triple.
Georgia extended its lead from there, going in front by seven with under eight minutes left in the half. It wouldn’t get much better for UK, either, as the ‘Dogs ballooned its advantage to as many as 11 points before the intermission. A timely 3-pointer from Wallace cut the UGA lead down to eight, 42-34, after the opening 20 minutes of action.
Despite Kentucky connecting on 10 of its 11 free-throw attempts, the ‘Cats shot just 33 percent from the floor and 2-7 from distance in the first half. Meanwhile, Georgia was getting off clean look after clean look, making 56 percent of its overall shots by consistently beating UK off the dribble. Tshiebwe led the way for UK with 14 points and nine rebounds, but that was just the beginning for the reigning national player of the year.
Out of the break, Kentucky leaned on its star to deliver results — and boy did he. Tshiebwe scored nine points in the opening three minutes of the second half before a triple from CJ Fredrick gave the ‘Cats a 46-45 lead. Georgia managed to fight back though, knotting the game at 57-all with roughly 12 minutes to go, but that was the last time the score was close.
From there, Kentucky began to slowly break away, taking a 67-60 lead into the under-eight media timeout. Tshiebwe continued to put the ‘Cats on his back, helping put the gas pedal all the way down to the floor. UK went ahead 73-65 with under four minutes left and dove into grind-it-out mode. A massive and-one finish from Tshiebwe put this game to bed with about two minutes to go.
Next up for Kentucky is another home matchup this Saturday against Texas A&M at 2:00 p.m. EST on ESPN.
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