Kentucky's troubling lows will begin to cancel out historic highs if Cats aren't careful

If you were wondering how long a root canal takes, it’s two hours and 33 minutes. You can get them in Athens at Stegeman Coliseum pretty easily, apparently — we didn’t even have to wait until the trip to Starkville to take on Chris “The Dentist” Jans to experience one. Mike White had Kentucky open wide and let ‘er rip, along with the help of a free-throw differential of 38 attempts to 19 with Georgia a plus-14 points at the line in a 13-point win. 45 total foul calls in 40 minutes of a regulation basketball game with seven trips to the replay monitor were unnecessary and excessive and embarrassing and excruciating — just go down the list. It was among the least enjoyable watching experiences of my life, and that’s not an exaggeration. The officiating crew of Don Daily, Steven Anderson, Olandis Poole led the charge there, and for that, we thank them. Truly.

They tried their hardest, but the three blind mice weren’t the cause of Kentucky’s downfall, unfortunately. Those bozos stunk out loud and the SEC Network crew gaslighting all of us into thinking it was an acceptable performance from the stripes only made it worse. The Wildcats’ issues were, once again, for a third time, self-inflicted. My goodness, it’s like we’re living in the Twilight Zone, watching the same loss over and over and over again, Clemson turning into Ohio State and Ohio State turning into Georgia. Are they learning lessons or flaw-exposing warning sirens screaming in our faces?

The blueprint to beating Kentucky: set the tone with physicality and watch the Cats squirm. That’s all the Tigers, Buckeyes and Bulldogs have done. None have talent advantages, but if you throw the first punch and dive for loose balls, box out and rebound hard, and most importantly, turn a cohesive team that takes pride in unselfish play into hero-ball-reliant individuals, it becomes rather easy. They’re comfortable getting punked, spotting you a double-digit lead and assuming they’ll be able to scrape together a second-half comeback. It’s almost a sense of entitlement that adjustments will fall into the players’ laps to right the early wrongs or that opponents won’t have their own responses. For the coaches, there is a naivety that the bad habits will magically be broken or the cold streaks will always turn hot or — and maybe worst of all — the poor body language and sulking will inevitably lead to a mental breakthrough.

It’s all beautiful when it works, but it’s maddening when it doesn’t. That’s how you get the extremes of Duke, Gonzaga and Florida vs. Clemson, Ohio State and Georgia. If the Wildcats weren’t capable, they wouldn’t have the 3-0 record against top-10 competition, a mark that hasn’t been hit for a first-year coach in Lexington since Adolph freaking Rupp. They are, though, and that’s what makes lapses against inferior competition so frustrating — and why it’s hard to pencil in this group as one certain to make a legitimate run in March, let alone contend for a national championship. Is this approach sustainable? Will they ever learn from digging these early holes expecting a ladder to be at the bottom of the sand every time? It has worked against the Blue Devils, Zags and Gators, but failed miserably against the Tigers, Buckeyes and Dawgs. Coin flips aren’t good enough right now with 12 more Quad 1 opportunities ahead before we even get to postseason play.

Georgia won comfortably by shooting 41.8 percent from the field and 29.2 percent from three. What happens when Kentucky doesn’t go nuclear offensively and opponents make shots? The Bulldogs finished with more turnovers (15) than the Cats (14) and assisted on just nine of 23 made baskets. Free throws aside, UGA left the door wide-open waiting for UK to burst through like the Kool-Aid Man in the second half, but Pope’s group couldn’t get out of its own way. Eight assists on 24 made shots, 34 rebounds to 41 with 13 offensive boards allowed and no field goals in the last 4:05 among other notable scoring droughts — including the one immediately after cutting the deficit to just five with 12:07 to go down to the 7:04 mark.

Yikes.

The sky is not falling for Kentucky. It is three days removed from beating a top-10 Florida team that just dog-walked No. 1 Tennessee as the Wildcats were getting their asses kicked in Athens. That’s the SEC for you — weird stuff is going to happen all season long and you just have to ride the wave with some of it. They could get embarrassed at Georgia on Tuesday and then head to Starkville and put Mississippi State in its place on Saturday and nobody would think anything of it. It’s an all-time league that is almost certain to shatter the NCAA Tournament record of 11 invites with as many as 15 teams potentially getting in (sorry, South Carolina).

But it’s also another chance to get embarrassed if they’re not careful, followed by another, then another, and another, all the way through March. Things are still peachy for now, but as Mike Tyson once said, everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. How will this group respond to its second hit in four games and third overall? The red flags are flying and it’s on the Cats to take them down with the road only getting tougher from here.