ATHENS, Georgia -- After Kentucky freshman Karl-Anthony Towns picked up his fourth foul with 5:50 to go in Tuesday night's 72-64 victory over Georgia at Stegeman Coliseum, Wildcats coach John Calipari gave him an earful when he reached the bench.

Calipari was upset that Towns was trying to do too much. Instead of kicking the ball out to a wide-open guard on the perimeter, Towns tried to back down Georgia senior Marcus Thornton and score. Instead, Towns was whistled for his fourth foul and turned the ball over.

"Don't be a hero," Calipari told him on the bench. "Don't try to make a hero play. Why are you doing it?"

At the time, the No. 1 Wildcats were trailing the Bulldogs 60-56 in what might have been their most difficult game of the season. With four fouls, Towns wasn't sure when his next opportunity would come -- and the Wildcats certainly needed him on the floor because they were struggling to stop Thornton and Georgia forward Nemanja Djurisic.

"I just went to the bench and kept thinking I had to be ready if my number was called again," Towns said. "Fortunately, it was."

The Wildcats went to Towns, a 6-foot-11, 250-pound forward, as much as they could after he returned to the floor with 3:25 left. After Kentucky tied the score at 62 on Aaron Harrison's jumper, Towns scored the game's next five points to make it a 67-62 Kentucky lead with 2:07 to go.

"He's so good he doesn't have to do crazy stuff," Calipari said. "On the bench, I told him he better figure it out because we can't have this going forward."

Towns added two foul shots with 33.4 seconds left and finished with 19 points on 8-for-12 shooting with seven rebounds. On a night when national player of the year candidate Willie Cauley-Stein was limited to four points and four rebounds in 24 minutes, Towns more than picked up the slack.

"We had to do some stuff to get Karl the ball in the post, and Karl did well," Calipari said. "I've got enough confidence in him to go to him to shoot free throws. That's how much I think of him. We know he has the courage and has the skill and ability. That's what we did: We went to him late."

The Wildcats improved to 30-0 and can finish the regular season with a perfect record if they defeat Florida on senior day at Rupp Arena on Saturday.

After trailing in less than 13 percent of the minutes in their first 29 games this season, the Wildcats were in for a dogfight against Georgia. After the score was tied at the half, the Bulldogs led by as many as nine points in the second half.

"We needed a game like this," Towns said. "The recent games, we've been playing so well. We needed a game where we weren't playing our best and had to fight through it. We'll have tough times in the [NCAA] tournament. We needed this."

It might have been a little too close, though, for the thousands of UK fans who filled most of the upper deck and other areas of Stegeman Coliseum. After the Bulldogs tied the game at 43 with 13:13 left, they scored on six straight possessions to open up a 56-47 lead.

With about nine minutes to go, Kentucky's unbeaten streak seemed to be in serious jeopardy. But then, Wildcats guard Andrew Harrison made a 3-pointer from the left corner to make it 56-50. Towns took over from there, and the Bulldogs didn't score for more than five minutes as UK broke the game open.

"They just never fold under pressure," Georgia guard Kenny Gaines said. "When we were up a significant amount, they just stayed calm, collected and made the proper plays. They got the job done."

During a timeout with about seven minutes to go, Towns implored his teammates to try to get three stops in a row.

Harrison told the Wildcats to try and get five consecutive. They ended up making seven straight stops during Georgia's long scoring drought, although the Bulldogs helped by missing the front end of three one-and-one foul shots.

"We played hard, we played very well, but we didn't play perfect," Georgia coach Mark Fox said. "And they are so dang good that you almost have to play perfect, and that's not realistic. Certainly, we would have liked to have made a few more free throws, but we didn't get there a lot. We would have liked to have shot the 3 better, but you're not going to play perfect against that kind of team."

The Wildcats were far from perfect on Tuesday night, but once again, they were better than the other team on the court.

"They're good," Calipari said of the Bulldogs. "They're an NCAA tournament team. For us, it's one of the teams we'd play in the tournament."

One down, with one more to go in the regular season, and then the SEC and NCAA tournaments. The quest for perfection is far from over.

"Going into the postseason, that's when everybody is undefeated," Harrison said. "We'll have to start from there."