Florida Gators

Florida at No. 10 Kentucky

 
* When: Wednesday, 8 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Rupp Arena / Lexington, Ky.
* Records: Florida (14-6, 4-3) / Kentucky (15-4, 4-2)
* TV: ESPN (Karl Ravech, Jay Bilas and Marty Smith)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD
  (with Sean Kelley and Lee Humphrey) / Stations list

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Projected Starters

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Tyrese Samuel	F	6-10 / 239	Graduate	13.2 pts / 8.3 reb
Micah Handlogten	C	7-1 / 236	Sophomore	7.4 pts / 7.9 reb
Will Richard	G	6-4 / 206	Junior	11.8 pts / 4.0 reb
Walter Clayton Jr.	G	6-2 / 195	Junior	15.9 pts / 3.8 reb
Zyon Pullin	G	6-4 / 206	Graduate	14.9 pts / 3.6 reb / 4.8 ast

Kentucky	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Tre Mitchell	F	6-9 / 231	5th-Senior	13.4 pts / 7.7 reb
Aaron Bradshaw	F	7-1 / 226	Freshman	6.4 pts / 4.6 reb
Adou Thiero	F	6-8 / 222	Sophomore	7.0 pts / 5.6 reb
Antonio Reeves	G	6-6 / 195	Senior	19.5 pts / 4.4 reb
DJ Wagner	G	6-4 / 192	Freshman	12.0 pts / 3.7 ast

The Breakdown

Setup / Series / Last Meeting

Florida and 10th-ranked Kentucky meet for the second time this season in a game between two teams trying to claw their way up the Southeastern Conference standings. ... The Gators have won three straight (and four of five) and are coming off Saturday's 102-98 overtime win over Georgia, when they blew a 21-point second-half lead at home and ultimately survived in the extra period. The Wildcats were smashed in a 17-point mid-week loss at South Carolina, but bounced back Saturday night by defeating Arkansas 63-57 on the road to stay a game out of first, along with two other teams. With the two-game split, Kentucky fell from No. 6 to No. 10 in The Associated Press rankings. ... UF is in a three-way tie for sixth place in the league. UK is in a two-way tied for third, just a game out of first place. ... Kentucky leads the all-time series 110-41, having won five straight, 10 of the previous 11, and own an 54-11 edge at home. UF and UK are permanent home-and-home SEC opponents, with the Wildcats having defeated the Gators 87-85 in Gainesville on Jan. 6 to open league play. In that one, 7-foot forward Aaron Bradshaw, with just three 3-point attempts on the season, buried a go-ahead trey to break a tie with 1:23 to play and classmate Reed Sheppard hit six consecutive free throws in the final 19.3 seconds to ice the road win and comeback from seven down with 12 minutes to play. Forward Antonio Reeves led five Cats into double figures with 19 points, while Sheppard finished with 14, going 9-for-11 from the free-throw line. ... UF coach Todd Golden is 0-3 against Kentucky. 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Kentucky
85.4	Scoring	88.5
.459	Field-goal percentage	.491
.331	3-point percentage	.402
76.8	Scoring defense	76.3
.431	Field-goal percentage defense	.420
.330	3-point percentage defense	.316
36th	KenPom.com overall ranking	20th
13th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	9th
99th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	70th
18th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	13th
39th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	23rd
39th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	60th

Team Snapshots

The Gators

UF is on its first three-game winning streak in more than a year (and just the second in SEC play under Golden), but the program is still looking for a big, signature Quadrant 1 victory, per

NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) metrics. The Gators are 0-6 in Q1s and 5-0 in Q2s, but this game starts a run of three straight Q1s and potentially five of the next six, pending results for upcoming opponents. For now, Florida's best win, per the NET, came against Mississippi State (NET 37th), which could possibly work itself into a Q1. ... After turning the ball over just 15 times in wins at Missouri and against Mississippi State, the Gators coughed it up 19 times against Georgia and nearly paid dearly for it. The same could be said about a defense that allowed the Bulldogs to shoot 62 percent and score 51 points in the second period, thus vanquishing a 21-point second-half lead with less than 13 minutes to go. UGA turned the turnovers into 24 points, but UF did enough in the extra period to avoid what would have been one of the all-time collapses (and worst losses) in program history. ... Florida entered SEC play shooting 65.1 percent from the free-throw line, but are at 74.6 against conference teams, with three starters at 85.7 or better. That improvement has been huge the past two games. The Gators also went into SEC play in the top half in defensive efficiency, but have plummeted to next-to-last. ... Center Micah Handlogten is coming off far and away his finest game as a Gator after scoring a career-high 23 points on 10-for-13 shooting and grabbing 17 rebounds, including seven on the offensive end. For Handlogten, the Marshall transfer shooting 70.3 percent in SEC games, it was his second double-double in three games (after going 13 without one). He also has demonstrated a willingness to be more physical the last three games, but the team could use better rim protection for a player so tall. He has just five blocks in SEC play. ... Point guard Zyon Pullin had 20 points, eight assists, seven rebounds and went 7-for-8 from the free-throw line, including the two big ones with 5.7 seconds left in OT to ice the Georgia game. Pullin scored seven of UF's 17 in the extra period. ... Guard Walter Clayton Jr. is at 17.3 points per game in the conference, but his assist-to-turnover numbers are even at 13. He's also below 40 percent from the floor. His 34.6 shooting from distance is below his career average. ... Guard Will Richard went 1-for-7 from the arc against Georgia (and just 29.5 percent now vs SEC), but was 7-for-7 from the 2-point area and also had seven rebounds, three on the offensive end. ... Tyrese Samuel had eight points and eight rebounds, but a couple timely buckets and dunks. ... Backup freshman forward Alex Condon (7.4 ppg, 6.9 rpg) is having trouble, at 37.5 percent, putting the ball in the basket in live action versus SEC teams. But after making just 65.2 percent of his pre-league free throws he's at 74.1 in conference. Putting the work in. ... Backup sophomore guard Riley Kugel (8.9 ppg, 2.9 rpg) has just seven points and eight field-goal attempts the last two games. 

The Wildcats

They're in Season 15 under John Calipari, who is 404-117, with six SEC regular-season championships, six tournament titles and the 2012 NCAA championship, but the Wildcats have won

just one NCAA Tournament game over the last four years and have no SEC titles since 2018. ... UK has not beaten any of the conference front-runners, with a 90-77 home win over Mississippi State its best league win. After facing Florida, the Wildcats get Tennessee at home in a big one Saturday. ... Freshman forward Justin Edwards (7.7 ppg, 4.1 rpg), after scoring just two points in 23 minutes in the loss to the Gamecocks, was benched from the starting lineup and played just nine minutes without a point at Arkansas. Reserve freshman guard Rob Dillingham (13.9 ppg, 3.8 apg, 38 percent from 3), who was playing starter's minutes earlier in the season, did not play against the Razorbacks due to an illness, according to Calipari. His minutes have declined during SEC play, with super-sub Reed Sheppard (11.5 ppg, 4.1 rpg, 4.0 apg) emerging as maybe the most valuable player on the team. Reed not only does everything, he does it all magnificently. The freshman is shooting 54 percent from the floor, 55 from deep, nearly 82 at the free-throw line and leads the SEC nearly 2.5 steals per game.  ... Guard Antonio Reeves, the Illinois State transfer in his second season with UK, is the conference's No. 4 scorer. He's shooting 50.2 percent overall and 43 from 3 on a team-high 74 attempts and also goes to the line more than any other Wildcat and shoots 87.3 percent. He had 24 of his team's 63 points at Arkansas, going 4-for-8 from the 3-point line. ... Forward Tre Mitchell , who transferred from West Virginia last summer, had a double-double of 12 points and 10 rebounds in the first meeting and had no problem reminding his UF defenders about it. Mitchell is at 56 percent from the floor, 38 from 3 and is fourth on the team in assists with 62 (to just 26 turnovers). ... Point guard D.J. Wagner played nearly the entire game (35 minutes) against Arkansas. ... Forward Aaron Bradshaw (54.4 percent from the floor) was paired in the starting frontcourt last game with Adou Thiero, who returned after missing the previous seven games. Adou had just one point and missed all five of his shots. The Wildcats also have 7-2, 235-pound Croatian Zvonimir Ivisic, who turned eligible just three games ago. "Big Z," one of the top international prospects in the world the last couple years, debuted with 12 points, made three of four 3s and grabbed four rebounds over 16 minutes in a rout of Georgia. He played just 13 minutes the two games since, with only three points and two rebounds. ... Interesting note: Kentucky has played one less game than the rest of the conference teams because the Wildcats scheduled a non-league game for what was supposed to be their designated single-game week. It's a big game, too. The Cats will play Gonzaga at Rupp on Feb. 10.  
 

Numbers of Note

* 0 — 3-pointers made by Bradshaw since his difference-maker against the Gators. He's 0-for-5 since. 

* .095 — Florida's winning percentage in Quadrant 1 games the last two seasons, based on a 2-19 record, including 0-6 in the '23-24 season. 

* .169 — Florida's all-time winning percentage on the road against Kentucky, based on an 11-54 record, dating to 1927.  

* 3 — SEC games (out of seven) when a Florida opponent has scored at least 50 points in the second half: Kentucky (50), Ole Miss (59) and Georgia (51). The Gators lost the first two of those games. That total lapse in defensive focus and intensity just cannot happen.

* 2021 — The last year the Gators won at Rupp Arena. They did so under pandemic restrictions (limited attendance, social distancing), with sophomore guard Tre Mann scoring 21 points and grabbing eight rebounds over 35 minutes. His two free throws with 10 seconds to play gave the visitors a two-possession lead in what became a rare road win in the series. Junior forward Colin Castleton had 14 points, five rebounds a career-high four assists, while junior guard Tyree Appleby had 11 points, five rebounds, five assists and atoned for his five turnovers with a late go-ahead 3-pointer.  
 

Bottom Line

Another difficult road week of two Q-1 games. Only the Gators' best version of themselves will due.