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Double Play
Kentucky 'Rebounds' To Edge Georgia 62-57 In Finals To Give 'Cats Both The Regular-Season Championship And The SEC Tournament Title
By TCP Columnist Mike Estep
BATON ROUGE, La.  For the second time in as many days, Kentucky came out and played considerably below its capablities in the first half. On both occasions, UK coach Eddie Sutton felt compelled to give his team one of his patented "do-better" talks. And, as it had the day before in UK's 86-80 win over LSU in the semifinals, it spurred the weary Wildcats to a 62-57 victory over Georgia.
Although Kentucky held several three-point leads in the first 20 minutes, the last coming at 23-20 on a 15-foot jumper from Rex Chapman with 5:31 left, the Wildcats, also for the second consecutive day, trailed by five at halftime.
As the tournament's seventh-seeded team, Georgia was playing its fourth game of the event. As a result, Hugh Durham's Bulldogs wanted to slow down the pace of the game, and were able to do just that. Behind 11 first-half points from Willie Anderson, who after scoring 22 points in the Dogs' first-round win over Mississippi State had been limited to just two field goals in his next two games, and a deliberate attack, Georgia lulled the 'Cats to sleep in route to a 32-27 lead at the break.
"We came out that first half and were pretty flat, I think our players thought we'd won the conference tourney yesterday, beating LSU, because that was such an emotional game," Sutton said in his postgame press conference. "But the tempo of the game was in Georgia's favor. Once they got the lead, they were milking the clock, making us play defense. And we did not use good judgement in that first 20 minute period, we shot the ball at times when they weren't good shots. And it just seemed to me we were flat."
Continuing Saga Of The Do-Better Talk'
So if you thought Sutton's halftime speech against LSU was inspirational, you should have heard the beauty he dusted off for Sunday's championship game. By all reports, it was not for the faint-hearted.
"I gave 'em Chapter Two of what I said yesterday," Sutton said with a grin. "I guess I picked out individuals more than I did yesterday, but I was still talking to the squad that we just had come to play, and did not have ourselves what we call the 'magic level.' And often times, they have to be reminded that it's not just the team and the coaching staff that we're out there playing for, we're playing for a great many people. There are people that save their money to come to this tournament, and that's their vacation for the year. There are thousands and thousands of people that follow Wildcat basketball, and it's almost like a life-and-death affair.
"That's what I always tell our players: If we play hard and get beat, if we go out there and do everything possible and we lose, then everyone accepts that. But to go out and play basketball like we did in the first 20 minutes. . .1 was not happy with that and I don't think they were happy with theirselves."
'Cats 'Rebound' For Come-From-Behind Win
So Kentucky, whose 15 first-half rebounds equalled the Georgia total but was being outboarded 7-4 on the offensive glass, pulled itself up by the bootstraps and went out to change things. In the second half, the Wildcats more than doubled the Bulldogs' rebounding effort (19-8) and held an impressive 9-1 edge on the offensive end. As a result, the Wildcatsafter failing to get a single putback basket in the first halfgot 12 second-chance points in the final 20 minutes, what Georgia coach Hugh Durham called "the critical difference."
"The big difference in the second half was rebounding," Durham said. "The first half it was 15-all, but they outrebounded us 11 rebounds in the second half. And I would say that that was the critical difference in the basketball game, that board play in the second half."
So Kentucky rebounded, so to speak, from a deficit late in the game for the second time in as many days to capture its third SEC tournament championship in five years. But it was anything but easy.
Georgia took the aforementioned five-point lead at intermission, and although Kentucky made several runs early in the second period, the Wildcats couldn't seem to get over the hump.
Chapman buried a pair of jumpers from the right cornerthe first a 17-footer, the second a 22-foot bomb for threeto inch Kentucky in front 38-36 with 16 minutes remaining, but Georgia came storming back. Anderson hit Toney Mack with a lob for vicious alley-oop stuff to tie things at 38, and then Georgia went on a 10-4 run to take its biggest lead of the afternoon.
The 'Cats stayed close for the next 10 minutes, but the combination of Patrick Hamilton from the outside and Anderson and Mack inside kept the Dogs on top.
Until crunch time.
Guard Ed Davender hit back-to-back buckets at the six-minute - put the 'Cats on top briefly at 54-53. and then canned a
17-footer at the 4:19 mark to make it 56-55, UK.
At that point, both teams went dead cold from the field. The Wildcats eventually heated up. Georgia did not.
After a three-minute drought by both clubs, Hamilton hit a pair of free throws to move Georgia back in front 57-56. It would be the last time the scoreboard operator would adjust the point total for the Bulldogs. Kentucky ran a cleared out the left side of the laneSutton likes to call it one of his "special scoring plays'for Winston Bennett, who dropped a six-foot turnaround to give Kentucky the lead for good at 58-57, with 1:04 remaining.
SEC All-Tournament Team
Player Team
Rex Chapman*.......................................Kentucky
Winston Bennett....................................Kentucky
Patrick Hamilton.....................................Georgia
Vernon Maxwell........................................Florida
Ricky Blanton................................................LSU
*Most Valuable Player
Mack missed a running eight-footer with :31 seconds to go, Manuel cleared the rebound, and as Durham said, from that point on it was Kentucky's game to lose.
"From then it was their game to lose," Durham said. "They had already won it, it was their game to lose. By that I mean they had to go to the free throw line and miss because we were in position where we had to foul 'em. They won it with a minute and however long it was to go, and then they kept on playing really good and hitting critical free throws."
Chapman, who was named the tournament's Most Valuable Player, hit four straight free throws after Bennett's bucket to ice the win.
UK-Georgia Notes & Quotes
With the win, Kentucky becomes the third team in a row to win both the regular-season title and the tournament championship in the same season. The 'Cats won both two years ago and Alabama pulled the trick last season. . .Kentucky has now won the tournament three times since the renewal of the event: 1984 in Nashville, 1986 in Lexington and this season. And senior forward Winston Bennett has played on all three clubs. . .Like Dale Brown, Georgia coach Hugh Durham agrees that Kentucky has a good chance to be in Kansas City. "You gotta really think that Kentucky's in position that they can challenge for the national championship," Durham said. And, also like Brown, Durham says part of the reason is because of Eric Manuel. "When Manuel is in the lineup, I think that makes Kentucky a much, much better basketball team," he said, "and I think they get better in two positions. I think Bennett going [Continued On Page 22]
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UK-Georgia Play-By-Play			
Time Kentucky Sore			Georgia
19:481	[ (	1-2 1	Kesslet 10 fl.
18:39 [ B	ennelt 10 II.		
17:16 i \ |l6:56|	Unuel l.iyup	t-2 1-4	Kesslei 6 ft.
!lt>:34U	liinticl 14 ft. |	,4	
I .		5-6	Mack Iayup
|l4:16 ; I	ennett 7 fl.	il-6 |	
[12:16		B-8	Hamilton 16 II.
ll:5h C 11:02	Iwpm.m 20 ft.	1-8 11-')	y Anderson FT, FTA
10:4 V		1-11	Hamilton Iayup
10:19 9.00 8:4.1	lavender 8 ft., Fl	1-13 I 4-13 4-15 j	Mack 4 ft. Anderson FT, FT
8:00 ,		4-16	Pafton FTA, FT
7:37	lavender iavup	6-16	
|7:03		16-18:	\nderson Iayup
6:46	Chapman 8 ft..FT	9-18	
5:57 5:42	Davendet FT, FT	21-18! 21-20:	Patton 16 ft.
5:31	Chapman 12 ft i	23-20!	
5:17		23-22]	4inderson 8 ft. Anderson 4 It.
			Blakely 20 ft.
2:28	Bennett FT, FT	25-27	
1:48 :40 .01	Bennett Iayup	27-29 27-32	Anderson 19 ft. Ma. k 21 ft.
HALF 27-12			
-19:42 |l9:18	Chapman 12 ft. Manuel Iayup	29-32	Anderson FT, FT
18:36	lock tip in	33-34	
18:11	pi::::^	33-36	Kessler FT, FT
17:44 116:06	j Chapman 16 ft. [Chapman 21 ft.	35-36 138-36	
	: \		
'15:31		38-3	|             Mack Iayup
!l;5:1S	I Chapman FT, FT	J40-3f	
14:56		40-41	Kessler Iayup, FT
|14:19 |14:01 |13:4C 1.1:16	I Lock tip in 1	42-4 142-4 42-4	Anderson 10 ft. )i        Hamilton 17 ft. j|       Kessler FTA, FT
12:3'		42-4	1              Mack 8 ft.
12:01 i11:00	1 Bennett 8 ft	J44-4 -46-4	
!lCk4 9:07	i Chapman 12 ft.	146-5 48-5 148-5	1        Anderson dunk 31 1       Anderson FT, FTA
8: r,	j Bennett tip in	150-5	1
b:19 6:18 1 j'9 1:23 !l:04 !ii i.-	j Davender 12 ft. j Davender Iayup | Davender 16 ft i Bennett 6 ft. ! Chapman FT, FT I Chapman FT, FT	[50-5 J52-5 54-5 156-5 156-5 I5B-5 160-5 162-3	3        Hamilton 15 ft. 3| . 5:        Hamilton IB fl. 7|       Hamilton FT, FT | 7 7 71
FINAL		86-80	
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