Healthier Georgia last test for No. 1 UK?

LEXINGTON, Ky. – Georgia's basketball team is finally healthy and whole again, riding a three-game winning streak and coming off a 24-point rout. The Bulldogs, who started the season 14-5 before a rash of injuries and four losses in their next six, have some swagger back.

And just in time. Top-ranked and undefeated Kentucky (29-0, 16-0 SEC) is coming to town Tuesday night. Georgia (19-9, 10-6) will take one of the final two swings at the Wildcats as they try to polish off the first perfect regular season by a major-conference team in 39 years.

The Bulldogs will throw that punch knowing they at least made contact back on Feb. 3 at Rupp Arena when, without leading scorer and rebounder Marcus Thornton (concussion), they trailed by just five with two minutes to go and lost by nine – an admirable margin against these Cats.

"It's not like 'Oh, we hung with Kentucky,' " sophomore guard J.J. Frazier told reporters Saturday. "I feel like we can play with anybody in the country. Our best player wasn't playing. You get a little bit more confident because, as I call (Thornton), 'The Boss' wasn't down in the paint."

But by Monday morning, Georgia coach Mark Fox was pumping the brakes a bit.

"Playing (with) and beating are two different things. We're going to play the game, OK? So that's how I'll qualify that statement," he said. "But Kentucky, they've got a terrific basketball team. They have, without question, the best basketball team in America. It obviously will be a big challenge for our team.

"Looking back on (the first meeting), I don't think Kentucky probably played very well."

He notes that the Cats were also without a key player in that game: 6-10 freshman forward Trey Lyles, who was just named SEC Freshman of the Week after consecutive 18-point games in blowout wins over Mississippi State and Arkansas.

"They're a different team with Lyles in the game. I think that's obvious," Fox said. "We'll be a little different with Marcus, but we won't look back a lot on the first game and say, 'Hey, that's (significant),' because we're both in a different place. And we got it close, but the game wasn't close. They whooped us pretty good. We'll have to play much better."

Kentucky led by as many as 18 in the first meeting before Georgia made a game of it late. Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings, whose team lost to the Cats by only eight points on Jan. 20, is not especially confident the Bulldogs will fare better in the rematch.

"I guess that's why they play the games, because anything is possible, but if Georgia's going to pull it off, they're going to have to be awfully good," Stallings said. "Because there are not a lot of holes in that Kentucky team, I can tell you, and their depth is incredible, their effort level is incredible, and I think John (Calipari) has done a terrific job with them. So Georgia will have to be the best that Georgia can possibly be.

"Georgia has a very good team – we had to face them twice and came out on the short end both times – but playing the Cats this year is different than playing anybody else."

Stallings' team hit seven 3-pointers to hang around and Ole Miss made nine to push Kentucky to overtime. "Maybe if a team can hit a bunch of threes," Stallings said. "Maybe." The Bulldogs have made seven or more 3-pointers a dozen times this season and at least nine five times.

Calipari expects Georgia to "come up with something" in the game plan to give his team trouble, because in more than two decades of coaching, Fox is "one of the toughest ones to go against" as a strategist.

"This is a totally different game" than that first meeting, Calipari said. "They're making shots. They're gonna try to beat us down the floor. They're an NCAA Tournament team we're playing on the road. It's gonna be a hard game for us."

It certainly seems to be the harder of the two remaining in the regular season. Kentucky closes out the schedule Saturday at home against a sub-.500 Florida team it already beat in Gainesville. Whether the Bulldogs actually have what it takes to keep the Cats from making history remains to be seen.

"It's not impossible. You just gotta figure out a way to make it possible," Fox said. "They have a great team and they deserve all the accolades that they're getting, all the attention that they're getting, and we'll be their biggest fans as they get into the NCAA Tournament. But when it comes to tomorrow night, we've got to figure out a way to change the course of the results that they've had all year."

Kyle Tucker can be reached at (502) 582-4361. Follow him on Twitter @KyleTucker_CJ.