Notebook: Hill propels Florida to first victory over Kentucky since 2014

Point guard Kasey Hill has experienced plenty of highs and lows during his four seasons as a Gator – and with the nature of being a former Rivals top-10 recruit from the 2013 class, during those lows he has experienced plenty of criticism from the Florida fan base.

But as a senior, Hill has his career on the right track. This year, he has had overall his best season as a Gator and has helped Florida to playing its best basketball in years.

During Saturday’s 88-66 home victory over Kentucky, Hill tied a career-high in scoring with 21 points on 8-of-16 shooting to go along with six assists and five rebounds. Although Hill dealt with foul trouble for most of the first half, he still managed to be one of the most productive players on the court Saturday in 27 minutes of action.

"I thought he was fantastic,” Florida head coach Mike White said. “I'm so happy for him and his ability … not only his ability but the fact that he's stepped up and made some big offensive plays to complement how hard he's playing defensively.

"He hit some big jump shots for us. … He was incredible in transition offense. He just relies on his speed. Six assists, and then for him to get five rebounds.”

Added Hill: “It was definitely nice to get a win against them. We haven’t beaten them in like two years.”

Hill is the only player on Florida’s roster prior to Saturday to have a win against Kentucky under his belt, as he was a part of the rotation on the 2013-14 squad that reached the Final Four. Since that season, the Gators had gone 0-5 against the Wildcats up until Saturday night.

In front of a sellout crowd in the O’Dome, Hill put his veteran leadership on display for the Gators and helped his teammates finally earn a win against UK.

“I’m proud of him,” junior forward Devin Robinson said. “He’s been the leader of this program for numerous years. He kept the motor going. He played defense, he played hard. He made the shots that he made and just kept the team going.

“It was real big for Kasey and real big for our program. We all look up to him. He’s been here the longest. He’s the only one on the team who’s been to a Final Four. It was real big for his leadership to come tonight.”

DOMINATING THE BOARDS

One of the most eye-popping stats from Saturday’s box score was Florida dominance of Kentucky in the rebounding margin. The Gators outrebounded the Wildcats 54-29 and on the offensive glass 17-6.

It’s been a big emphasis proposed by White for the Gators since their two-loss week two weeks ago to improve their effort and hustle on the boards – and in the past four games, especially tonight, it has showed.

“Those guys are really, really hard to block out,” White said of Kentucky. “These guys, to become more physical – not necessarily worrying about getting the rebounds themselves but making sure that the guy they’re guarding doesn’t get the offensive rebound – that’s huge. To me, that’s the key to the game.”

Robinson said Kentucky gave Florida a little bit of extra motivation for Saturday night’s game in the form of trash talk. That helped fuel an inspired performance on the glass by the Gators.

“It was just heart,” Robinson said. “We just wanted it more. We felt like we wanted it more and we were going to take it. We fought hard in the beginning. We knew we had to prove to these guys that we’re not soft and just be physical. There was trashing at the beginning talking about, ‘All you guys are soft’ and all that. We just took it in and were like, ‘All right, we’re going to show you that we’re not soft.’ We just went harder than them.”

Added Kentucky head coach John Calipari: “They deserved to win. They wanted it worse than we wanted it.”

MOVING FORWARD

Florida’s victory against Kentucky is arguably the biggest up to this point of the White era. It was Florida’s largest margin of victory in its series history with Kentucky, and it’s the first time a Kentucky team has lost by this many points since 1992.

Saturday’s win was massive for Florida’s NCAA Tournament resume, but White doesn’t plan on relishing in it too long.

“I’m going to go home and hug my kids and have a big pizza with my wife and feel good about it, and then we’re on to Georgia. That’s it,” White said. “We’ve got to play well. As we just talked to our team about, we’ve got to have good preparation tomorrow – another quick turn.

“As I told our guys, beating Kentucky is great. They’re one of the best teams in the country, but we’re 8-2. We’re halfway through league play. We’ve got a ways to go. We’ve got to go back to Kentucky.”

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