Seniors Leave Lasting Mark
Senior forwards Nemanja Djurisic and Marcus Thornton made sure that the last time they heard their names called in the Stegeman Coliseum, it would be a night to remember.
"It's great to have them play well in their last game here in this building" Kenny Gaines said. "They're seniors so they are definitely battle-tested, and they stepped up to the occasion."
Djurisic finished the night with a team-high eighteen points. Thornton also finished with a solid fourteen points and a team-high seven rebounds.
The senior from Montenegro, having scored 14 of the Bulldogs' 32 first-half points, was the main reason why the Bulldogs were able to go into the locker room tied with a strong Kentucky team.
"Well Nemi was great, I mean, Nemi was great. I'm sure at halftime they talked about how they were going to slow down Djurisic," Mark Fox said. "But he was great and he played like a senior."
Although the Bulldogs weren't able to come away with a victory against one of the most impressive teams in recent memory, both Djurisic and Thornton should have no regrets as they walk out of Stegeman Coliseum for the last time.
Free Throws Weren't Free
When the team goes over the game tape on Wednesday, the big takeaway will have to be free throws.
"We just didn't get to the free throw line enough to get a rhythm there," Fox said. "It took us forever to get our first attempt, so we just didn't get there enough to get a rhythm and we just didn't make free throws."
The Bulldogs finished 9-18 from the line, but that wasn't the worst part.
Georgia missed the front-end of three consecutive 1-and-1s, and then J.J. Frazier missed two free throws, all within the last five minutes of the game.
"If we would have knocked down the free throws from the 1-and-1's and got to the second free throw and knocked down the second one, we definitely would have cut the lead down," Gaines said. "It would have put a little more pressure on them and we would have had a better opportunity to win the game."
Perfect…
The word of the night in the post-game press conferences with Fox and the players was "perfect."
Fox alluded to it four times in his opening statement alone.
"We played hard, we played very well, but we didn't play perfect," Fox said. "And they are so dang good that you almost have to play perfect, and that's not realistic."
The Bulldogs seemed to pull together almost a 'perfect' run in the middle of the second half where they strung together a nice 13 to 4 run which brought the crowd to its feet.
Thornton also referred to the team's performance as short of the level of perfection needed to win.
"We did some good things, some really good things," Thornton said. "We just didn't play perfect enough to win. That's a testament to how great a team Kentucky has."
Speaking of perfect, Kentucky will look to finish its regular season with a perfect 31-0 record when the Wildcats take on Florida.
Celebs in the Steg
All it takes to get the celebrities to flock into the Classic City is to have a nationally televised game against the only undefeated team in the country. Line that up and the celebrities just start falling out of the rafters.
Charles Barkley, Ashley Judd, David Pollack, Bill Belichick and Danny Ferry were just a few of the many faces that decided to pack into Stegeman and take in an extraordinary game.
Judd even took to Twitter to thank UGA and the city of Athens on her incredible night.
"That's was an out of body experience xperince.[sic] Hail, #UGA & the valiant effort. Thanks also for the fabulous atmosphere & kindness. #UKvsUGA"
