The Georgia Bulldogs, who are 6-4 and a game out of one of the first round SEC Tournament byes, comes into Lexington tonight with a forgettable list of players and accomplishments.
At least the Kentucky Wildcats couldn’t remember any of their players or accomplishments.
Thanks to the constant churning of the Kentucky basketball program, Willis, a junior forward, is one of the few on this year’s team who was at last year’s come-from-behind win at Georgia. Efforts to get him to recount it failed miserably.
“Oh, they were up on us?” Willis said. “Oh it happens. We ended up winning.”
On the other side of the room, another Wildcat, freshman Skal Labissiere, was confessing that when it came to this year’s Georgia team, “I don’t really know their roster very well.”
And just a few minutes earlier, assistant coach John Robic, in charge of scouting Georgia, took two stabs at pronouncing the name of Georgia’s sophomore forward.
“Matt-ten – or Ma-teen – boy has he gotten better,” Robic said.
Oh-for-two. It’s May-ten. Yes, Yante Maten has gotten much better. But no, Georgia is not on the radar enough for the preeminent program in the SEC, perhaps the country, to be fearful of what might occur on Tuesday night.
Here’s a good way to stump someone, both in Lexington and Athens: Which are the only two teams to reach the semifinals of the SEC tournament each of the past two years? Georgia and Kentucky. They’re also the only two teams to finish in the top four of the SEC each of the past two seasons.
Georgia isn’t a team the Cats can afford to overlook, even if they don’t know how to pronounce their names.
