Kentucky women’s basketball head coach Kyra Elzy spoke about her Wildcats upcoming game against No. 15 Georgia.

The game will be the first official contest the Cats will partake in since their 67-44 win over South Carolina Upstate on Dec. 19. Kentucky has had two games postponed since, with games against Auburn and Mississippi State being unable to take place due to COVID-19 issues.

Though UK won’t have taken the floor in over two weeks in a regular season game ahead of their ranked matchup, coach Elzy made sure to emphasize that this wasn’t the case.

“We played Campbellsville on Dec. 26 in a closed scrimmage which I think was very good for our team coming off break,” Elzy said. “Any time you can take the practice floor, it gives you an opportunity to clean up some things that we hadn’t had a chance to work on for a while.”

While the sport has been plagued with postponements and cancellations surrounding the recent surge of Covid cases in the country, Elzy was optimistic about Kentucky’s game against Georgia going off without a hitch.

“We feel that we will have full availability to take the floor on Thursday, which we are extremely excited about,” Elzy said. “It’s uncertain times while we’re dealing with Covid and not being able to take the floor, but we’re not the only team that has had to deal with this. We’ve been really focused on remaining resilient.”

The game against Georgia is also symbolic beyond simply being a ranked conference matchup, as the Bulldogs took Kentucky out in the second round of the SEC tournament last season, which ultimately led to the Cats drawing a four seed in the NCAA Tournament and being upset by Iowa in the second round.

“We did not have our best showing in the SEC Tournament [last season], but at the end of the day it’s a new season,” Elzy said. “[Georgia] rebounds the ball extremely well, and yes they did out-rebound us in that game [last year]. They push in transition offense and they’re tough, so we’ll just have to match their intensity. It’s going to be a battle of wills on the board. It’s going to be a test, but that’s just part of the SEC grind.”

No. 21 Kentucky duels No. 15 Georgia in Memorial Coliseum on Thursday, Jan. 6, at 7 p.m. The game can be viewed on the SEC Network+.