GAINESVILLE, Fla. – It was a back and forth affair but in the end, 7th-ranked Kentucky proved to be too much for the Florida Gators, as they fell apart down the stretch in the 65-54 loss.
“At the end, it showed that we were fatigued,” forward Keyontae Johnson said of the loss. “We stopped communicating at the loudest part of the game and started missing rotations.
“This one hurts because we had the game in our hand. For it to end like this, it’s a hard loss.”
Florida has been on the outside looking in this entire season, and a victory over the Wildcats would have been exactly what they needed to insert themselves right back in the tournament conversation, but the Gators let this one slip through their fingers.
For three quarters of this game Florida was in the drivers seat. The Gators were dictating the flow of the game and dominating defensively. But a basketball game is 40 minutes, and over the last seven minutes, Kentucky outscored Florida 21-6.
“It seemed like we couldn’t score for a couple days there, couldn’t find a way,” White said. “We were trying to generate different ways and we just couldn’t find a way to get it to go for us.
“Then I thought that it affected our defensive energy a little bit, gave up a dunk in our zone press, a couple of kick-ahead threes due to a lack of communication. It seemed like they just stepped up and made big shots.
“They stepped up and made big shots, we helped them with a few mistakes. You can say ‘coach, we just made a few of them,’ but you can’t do that against a top-ten team. We’ve got to be more accountable defensively. They were terrific defensively.”
Not known for his scoring, Andrew Nembhard led the team in scoring Saturday with 12 points on 5-11 shooting (2-4 from deep) and three assists. KeVaughn Allen and Jalen Hudson were also in double figures as both finished with 11.
The game started uncharacteristically for the Gators, as they were red-hot in the opening minutes, shooting 50 percent and blocking three shots. Kevarrius Hayes moved to second all-time in blocks within the first five minutes with 190 and at the first media timeout, Florida held a slim 12-9 lead.
That lead would extend a bit over the next few minutes as the Gators continued to asset their will on defense, forcing Kentucky to go one for seven at one point and extending the lead slightly to 17-13.
However, the drought was bound to hit and it did with just over 11 minutes left in the half and last for right around four minutes, allowing the Wildcats to close the gap. Eventually Johnson converted a layup to regain the lead 19-18 to end the drought.
Florida and Kentucky would go back and forth for a while. At one point there was four lead changes in four straight possessions. As the half winded down Florida went on a 6-0 run with two minutes left that propelled them to the halftime lead of 33-29.
The second half started a bit slower than the first with only seven points scored combined over the first five minutes of the second half. However, the Gators held five of those and extended their lead to nine with 15:06 remaining in the game.
Although the Gators didn’t score a lot in the early portions of the second half, the Wildcats wouldn’t score for seven and a half minutes until P.J. Washington went to the free throw line to stop the bleeding.
Florida was dominating the game at this point and held a 12-point lead with 13:59 left. That’s when things took a turn for the worst.
The turning point happened when Washington was at the line. He missed his second free throw, but Kentucky hauled in the offensive rebound and converted the put-back.
To put it simply, the Wildcats outscored the Gators 33-12 over the final 12:32 of the game. Florida couldn’t buy a basket and Kentucky started asserting its will down low with Washington and Keldon Johnson.
“We got a little stagnant and weren’t as aggressive,” Hayes said. “We were more so trying to hold onto the lead rather than continuously attacking.”
The Gators would go on one run with just under nine to play and jumped back up by five with 7:12 left, but would go scoreless until Hudson made a layup with just over two minutes left.
By that point Kentucky had taken a seven-point lead and sucked all the wind out of the stadium. By the end of the game it looked as if the Wildcats had been in control the entire time en route to the 65-54 victory.
“We stopped communicating,” Johnson said. We’re the reason that we lost that game. We can learn from it though, like pushing up the court and talking, energy wise, running more in practice.”
The Gators couldn’t convert offensively and just ran out of gas in the end. It was a deflating loss and one Florida has to overcome quickly as they travel to face Auburn on Tuesday.
