NASHVILLE, Tenn. — UK men’s basketball did away with its recent trend of slow starts on Friday afternoon in the SEC quarterfinals against Georgia, and led for nearly the entire game in route to a 71-60 victory over the Bulldogs.

Slow starts have been a common theme for the Cats over their last three games, but on Friday afternoon, UK avoided the slow start against the Bulldogs thanks largely in part to the play of Isaiah Briscoe.

Briscoe had a game-high 20 points and added 6 rebounds and 2 assists, but Briscoe’s offense was only half of the story. Defensively, Briscoe was all over every UGA player that he was guarding and his scrappiness and defensive intensity sent a message early.

“We wanted to come out with a lot of energy and press early and get the game to speed up,” Briscoe said. “That was the emphasis all week in practice. I think we executed coming out today.”

Led by Briscoe, the team’s fast start was engineered by the defense; forcing a Georgia shot-clock violation on the very first possession, UK immediately set a tone on the defensive end, making the Bulldogs take tough shot after tough shot.

Those tough shots resulted in a few early runouts that allowed UK to grab an early 10-2 lead. Eventually growing to 25-12 at the seven-minute mark of the first half. Aside from the ability to grab control early, the Cats put the clamps on Georgia’s leading scorer J.J. Frazier, holding him scoreless for the first 16 minutes of the half.

However, UK could only keep Frazier in check for so long, as he rattled off six quick points before the end of the first half to help Georgia trim the Cats’ lead to 35-25 heading into the locker room.

The Cats led for 17:57 of the first half, never trailing at any point, and surprisingly this was all done with Malik Monk having minimal impact. Monk was forced to the bench around the 10-minute mark of the first half with a pair of fouls, but his fellow guards picked up the slack.

“(The other guys picking up the slack) is great,” Monk said. “It shows we have a great team and we play together. That is all I can ask for, for the guys to pick me up when I am not making shots, and that is what they did.”

Briscoe and De’Aaron Fox each had eight points in the first half, and UK’s senior trio combined for 11 points, but it all began with the quick start that the Cats had defensively.

The quick start that helped UK jump out to an early lead in the first half, played a big part in the Cats jumping out to a 13-point lead thanks to an early 6-0 run to start the half. And just as it did in the first half, UK set a tone for the rest of the game.

Briscoe and Fox continued to lead the Cats in the second half, and the rest of UK followed. Georgia got as close as 10 points at one point in the second half, but UK did not allow the Dawgs to hang around and it go in to cruise control down the stretch.

Fox added 20 points of his own Friday, and Bam Adebyao finished with 13 points and 10 rebounds, but Monk continued to struggle, finishing with a season low two points. For the second straight game, UK overcame the struggles of its star offensive talent.

The Cats will now play the winner of South Carolina – Alabama in the first semifinal on Saturday night. UK is a combined 2-0 against those teams this year.