By Neil Schmidt
The Cincinnati Enquirer

LEXINGTON - After consecutive victory No.13, Chuck Hayes felt it was time to come clean.

"I'm just as clueless as y'all," Kentucky's sophomore forward said Tuesday night, after UK beat Georgia 87-67 at Rupp Arena.

"I don't know what's making us play so well. We're just doing it. And we're loving it. I hope we can take it a long way."

The third-ranked Wildcats can claim a winning streak as long as any in Tubby Smith's seven seasons as coach, matching the run that closed their 1998 national championship season.

Theirs has been a scorched-earth tour of the Southeastern Conference, a league rated the nation's toughest. UK (19-3) is 9-0 in the SEC, vying to become just the second team to go 16-0 in this league.

The only other group to do so? UK's 1995-96 "Untouchables" team that won the national championship.

"I don't know if we could have expected this," UK junior guard Cliff Hawkins said. "But we have great chemistry, and things are just happening for us."

Tuesday, UK used another suffocating defensive performance to build a 31-point lead with 7:17 remaining.

The 20th-ranked Bulldogs, who shot 43.1 percent on the night, were just 19-of-50 (38 percent) at that point before heating up a bit in garbage time.

Georgia (13-7, 5-4 SEC) was in UK's doghouse after administering a rare two-game sweep in the season series last winter. Revenge was meted out with muscle, as the Wildcats outrebounded Georgia 45-31, and with sharp shooting, as UK's 11 3-pointers were nine more than the Bulldogs made.

UK placed six scorers in double figures, including double-doubles from Marquis Estill (16 points, 12 rebounds) and Hayes (11 points, 10 rebounds).

"It was a very complete game for us," Smith said. "We've been getting very unselfish play."

Defense has been a constant in this run. In UK's last eight games before Tuesday, opponents had shot 38.2 percent combined, and UK leads the SEC in every defensive category.

To hear Smith tell it, defense is a byproduct of unselfishness:

"When you get the right personnel and the right chemistry, and guys buy in and believe ... it's just about heart. It's about want-to and desire."

This marked the eighth consecutive game UK has won by at least 15 points and the fourth in a row in which it held a double-digit halftime lead.

Comparing this UK team to last season's, Georgia coach Jim Harrick said: "They're more athletic. They're better rebounders. They come together and they're really unselfish.

"Gerald (Fitch) wasn't shooting consistently and (Keith) Bogans wasn't shooting well last year. They're really playing well right now."

Fitch was 4-of-7 on 3-pointers Tuesday and scored 14 points. Bogans had three 3-pointers.

Hawkins had a complete game - totaling 11 points, five assists and four steals and shooting 3-of-6 from 3-point range.

Georgia was within 11 points in the final minute of the first half. But after UK scored the first 11 points of the second half - with Georgia missing its first 10 shots - the Wildcats led 53-30.

UK held Georgia guard Ezra Williams, the SEC's fourth-leading scorer at 17.5 points a game, to five points - none in the first half.

Georgia, which returned all five starters from the team that shared the Eastern Division crown last season, has lost three of its last four games and is 1-4 on the road in league play.

UK is 8-1 against ranked teams.

UK's most impressive stretch came in the middle of the second half, with UK already comfortably ahead. Estill had a slam dunk off a Cliff Hawkins feed, Hawkins had two 3-pointers, Estill had another basket, and Kelenna Azubuike stole a pass and went in for a dunk.

That pushed the lead to 74-43.

Georgia	M	FG	Att	FT	Att	R	A	F	TO	TP
Daniels	25	2	2	0	0	7	1	3	2	4
Thomas	30	4	10	0	0	7	0	3	2	8
Hayes	33	8	18	0	2	1	2	2	3	17
Wright	28	2	5	0	0	2	3	1	1	4
Williams	23	2	9	0	0	2	0	1	3	5
Wilkins	26	6	15	9	11	3	1	4	1	21
Hayes	22	2	3	0	1	3	1	0	0	4
Arnold	2	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Wehunt	9	2	3	0	0	2	0	0	0	4
Moses	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Totals	200	28	65	9	14	31	8	14	12	67

Team rebounds -4.

Kentucky	M	FG	Att	FT	Att	R	A	F	TO	TP
Daniels	24	4	9	4	6	6	3	3	1	12
Hayes	29	3	8	5	5	10	1	1	2	11
Estill	31	8	12	0	0	12	2	1	5	16
Fitch	28	5	10	0	1	3	2	2	1	14
Bogans	29	4	10	1	2	3	3	3	1	12
Hawkins	16	4	8	0	0	1	5	2	1	11
Carrier	2	1	1	0	0	0	0	0	0	3
Cote	3	0	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0
Azubuike	8	2	4	2	2	1	0	3	0	6
Barbour	13	0	1	0	0	1	3	0	1	0
Camara	13	1	5	0	0	3	0	1	1	2
Stockton	1	0	0	0	0	0	1	0	0	0
Totals	200	32	68	12	16	45	20	17	13	87

Team rebounds - 5.

Kentucky	42	45	-87
Georgia	30	37	-67

3-pointers - G 2-14 (Hayes 1-4, Wright 0-2, Williams 1-5, Wilkins 0-2, Wehunt 0-1), UK 11-23 (Hayes 0-1, Fitch 4-7, Bogans 3-6, Hawkins 3-6, Carrier 1-1, Azubuike 0-1, Barbour 0-1). Technicals - None. Officials - Boudreaux, Lindsay, Smith. Attendance - 23,165.