Florida Gators

LEXINGTON, Ky. — They overcame another slow start and put together one of their best offensive halves of the season. Even did it on the road. Despite spending the entirety of their Saturday night at Rupp Arena playing from behind, the Florida Gators actually gave themselves a chance in the final minutes by scoring points in bunches and looking pretty good doing it. 

When they review the tape, however, the Gators may beat themselves up a bit, oddly enough, over how they defended — their strength this season — in the second half. 

Kentucky freshman guard Cason Wallace scored a team-high 20 points, including a pair of free throws with 13 seconds left, and the Wildcats, who never trailed, withstood a hard charge from the visiting Gators before claiming a 72-67 victory and a seventh consecutive win in Southeastern Conference play. 

UF, which fell behind by 14 with eight minutes to go and by nine inside five minutes remaining, had a chance to tie the game late, but Myreon Jones' closely guarded 3-point attempt with 15 seconds left bounced away. Wallace was fouled on the rebound and sealed the outcome at the free-throw line. 

"Really proud of the way we competed," Florida coach Todd Golden said. "Now we have to use it as a little bit of a learning lesson and understand when you play a good team like Kentucky, you can't put yourself behind the 8-ball like that." 

Like by making just two field goals over the games first 14 minutes and going down by 13 at one of the most hostile venues in the country. Or like giving up 13 offensive rebounds leading to 15 second-chance points, including a couple killer buckets down the stretch. Or like being outscored 14-0 in the transition game.

Even so, the Gators were there at the end because fifth-year forward Colin Castleton worked silly his counterpart, UK's Oscar Tshiebwe, the 2022 SEC and NCAA Player of the Year, on the offensive end by scoring 25 points to go with eight rebounds, five assists and three blocks over 37 minutes. Castleton scored 19 points in the second half and 12 over the final seven minutes when he fouled Tshiebwe out and nearly led the comeback. 

Tshiebwe left the game with a season-low four points, having missed 12 of his 14 shots against Castleton's defense, but did clear 15 rebounds, with nearly half (7) on the offensive end.  "We're on the road. It's a tough environment. You can't dig a hole," Castleton said. "It's something we've dealt with all year, whether it's guys missing wide-open layups or in the case of this game, transition [defense]. Kentucky is a good transition team. It's something we needed to do better than we did."

Instead, the Gators (13-10, 6-4) have now lost four league games by a combined 13 points. 

UF shot nearly 42 percent, including 55 in a second half when the Gators made five 3-pointers. Unfortunately, a defense that ranked eighth nationally in overall efficiency and had held all but one of its nine league opponents under 40 percent, allowed the Wildcats (16-7, 7-3) to drop 45 percent for the game, but nearly 54 in a second half, all the while the Gators were scoring 45 points. 

"I told Todd prior to the game, I said, 'Coach, I'm watching the tape. You're doing a heck of a job with your team. That's one of the top defensive teams in the country,' " Kentucky coach John Calipari recounted afterward. "They're in the top 10 in like every category defensively."

But probably didn't play to those credentials Saturday.

An old-time 3-point play from Wallace put Kentucky up 59-45 with 8:19 to play, but that's where Florida started its rally. Out of the under-eight media timeout, fifth-year point guard Kyle Lofton (13 points) hit a 3-pointer to start a mini-run of seven straight points to close within seven. It could have been more, but Kentucky, which won the overall rebounding battle 38-30, canceled out two UF defensive stops with offensive rebounds, with the Wildcats' third chance ending with diminutive guard Sahvir Wheeler grabbing a long rebound off his missed 3-ball and driving straight down the left side of the lane for an unchallenged, blow-by layup. 

Florida, though, countered with a layup from Jones and two free throws from Castleton to make it a five-point game. After the two teams traded 3s (UK's from Wallace, UF's by Will Richard, who had 13 points) the margin was five when the Cats again got an offensive rebound and made the Gators pay with a putback bucket from senior forward Jacob Toppin (17 points, 10 rebounds).  With a minute left, and Kentucky up by four, the Gators were on a spree of five straight made field goals and the Cats with three straight. 

Two free throws from backup forward Daimon Collins with 51.6 seconds pushed the Cats ahead by six, but Jones' 3 with 36 to go cut that margin in half and made it a one-possession game at 70-67. UF fouled Toppin and put him at the line for a one-and-one with 35 seconds left. He missed. 

So did Jones at Florida's end, as the Gators had no timeout to call to set up a play. His look from in front of the Florida bench wasn't very good, either. Kentucky was on it.  

Then came Wallace's icing free throws to give the former McDonald's All American a dozen points in the second half, finishing seven of 10 from the floor, with three assists and a couple steals. 

"He played great and I would say he beat the scout a little bit in terms of what I instructed our guys to do. I thought, for the most part, our guys executed our defensive coverage, but he stepped up and made some big shots," said Golden, who could've said the same about Toppin (8-for-16 for the game), Wheeler (8 points on 4-for-5 from the floor) and guard CJ Frederick (12 points, three of his team's mere five 3s). "You have to pick what you give up against a team like this. I'm always going to be OK with the opposing team shooting midranges, so sometimes you have to tip a cap to them."

They'll probably do so reluctantly, given the kind of defense the Gators had been playing the last couple months; and how they likely have to rediscover that ability to guard in short order.