You couldn't fault the Bulldogs for hoping. After all, anything's possible, or so these kids have been told since they were old enough to follow a Disney movie.
And so Georgia, 13-15 overall and 4-10 in the SEC, entered Rupp Arena in Lexington on Senior Night with a gleam in their eyes and hope in their hearts. No. 1 Kentucky wasn't unbeatable.
After all, Georgia's last game was an upset win over the second-best team in the conference, Florida, and the Dawgs held Kentucky to only 57 points when these two teams met in January. If Mark Fox's squad could play tough zone defense and shut down Kentucky freshman center Anthony Davis, they thought they could pull this off, right? Right?
Well, not so much. Unfortunately for Georgia, hope is not a strategy. And while Kentucky has made all but its most talented opponents look like JV squads this year, the Dawgs looked worse still.
Kentucky scored the first basket and never trailed, hitting from long range, scoring inside, running the floor for beautiful transition baskets and swarming the boards like the best defensive team in the nation. They led by 18 at the half and by 23 three minutes into the second. The lead was 30 with 12:41 left in the game. It eventually stretched north of 40 before almost everyone stopped looking. If there had been a mercy rule, the refs would have called this one early.
The final was 79-49, but it might as well have been 100-20. Saying the Wildcats won by 30 makes it sound closer than it really was. Kentucky could have beaten the Bulldogs by whatever margin John Calipari wanted.
Of course, Davis had another standout night, scoring nine points, blocking two shots and grabbing eight rebounds. The freshman is the leading candidate for NCAA Player of the Year, but it was an across-the-board effort. Senior Darius Miller led all scorers with 17, Doron Lamb had 13 and Michael Kidd-Gilchrist put up 12. As a team, Kentucky made 15 three-pointers, shooting an astonishing 55.6 percent from outside the arc.
Anyone who saw the game walked away believing Kentucky will blow through the early rounds of the NCAA tournament and walk into the Final Four. From there, of course, anything is possible, but the Wildcats who turned up Thursday night showed the world why they are the favorites to win it all.
The Big Blue fans couldn't get enough, and for good reason. They know how fleeting moments like this can be. The seniors aren't likely to be the only ones to have played their final games in Lexington. Davis will almost surely come out. He is an NBA lottery pick and could be a Patrick Ewing-style force at the next level.
Kidd-Gilchrist made hearts sing in Lexington earlier in the week when he hinted he might not put his name in the NBA Draft and, instead, stay at Kentucky and earn a degree. As admirable as that goal is, Calipari said the freshman would have to work hard to convince him it was the right move.
"He has to come up with reasons why he's coming back to convince me," Calipari said. "What if he gets hurt and I'm out there convincing him to come back? You can't make a decision until the year is out and see what all the information is. Obviously, if he wants to stay, I'll be very happy. In the same sense, it's too early to tell what anyone's going to do right now."
Those words might prove prescient as ghosts of upsets past rear their heads the closer we get to tournament time. Anything is possible, after all. Hope, for some, still springs eternal.
But it's a faint ember. Because the Kentucky team that showed up at home on Senior Night will beat any team in the country by double digits. Count on it. Nobody comes close.
