GAINESVILLE, Fla. — What was shaping up as one of Kentucky’s best basketball games of the season took a hard turn before halftime.
It still worked out for the Wildcats.
UK blew a 15-point lead in the first half and ended up trailing at the break, but the Cats recovered after halftime to defeat Florida, 82-74, for its third consecutive win.
Oscar Tshiebwe led Kentucky with 25 points, and the Cats outrebounded the Gators 40-21 despite Tshiebwe pulling down only four boards. Jacob Toppin had 19 points and 11 rebounds for UK, while Chris Livingston chipped in with 10 points and 15 rebounds. Antonio Reeves scored 16, and Cason Wallace dished out a team-high six assists.
Those five starters played the entire second half for Kentucky.
The Cats could hardly miss to start things off. UK made nine of its first 12 shot attempts. The Wildcats took their first double-digit lead of the game before the second TV timeout, with Toppin hitting a 3-pointer to put Kentucky up 20-9 with 12:12 still left on the first-half clock. By the third TV timeout, the Wildcats’ advantage had ballooned to 30-15.
And then it all fell apart.
Florida scored seven straight points out of the TV timeout, forcing John Calipari to call one of his own. That didn’t help. The Gators dropped another six points on Kentucky and narrowed the game to 30-28 before Lance Ware broke the 13-0 run, giving UK its first points in more than four minutes.
Kentucky’s lead then grew to eight points before Florida made another charge, ending the half with a 9-0 run to take a 37-36 lead into the locker room. The Gators’ Riley Kugel hit a 3 with 17 seconds left in the half to set that score and give Florida its first lead before halftime.
Kentucky missed nine of its final 12 shots of the period. Florida made nine of its last 12.
The only bright spot for the Cats toward the end of the first half came when Tshiebwe drained a jumper to score his 1,000th point as a Kentucky player. Tshiebwe made his first seven shots of the game — most of them jumpers — and had 15 points at the break.
The second half was another series of runs.
Kentucky retook the lead on its first possession and ultimately got up 50-43 before the Gators stormed back to take a 51-50 lead. The Cats then clawed back to go up six points, only to see Florida tie it at 59-all. From there, UK made four straight baskets, took a 67-59 lead and never trailed again, though the Gators did narrow another double-digit Kentucky lead to 74-72 with less than a minute left.
Livingston made a huge play on the Cats’ next possession, grabbing an offensive rebound on a missed 3 by Wallace, putting it back, drawing a foul and draining the free throw. That gave Kentucky a 77-72 lead.
Florida was playing without its best player, preseason All-SEC pick Colin Castleton, who suffered a broken hand last week. Castleton scored 25 points against UK in Rupp Arena earlier this month, playing a major hand in holding Tshiebwe to just four points on 2-for-14 shooting in that one.
Kentucky was playing without CJ Fredrick and Sahvir Wheeler again Wednesday night. Fredrick has now missed four consecutive games with a rib injury, while Wheeler was sidelined for the fifth straight game with an ankle injury. Both players made the trip to Gainesville, but neither participated in pregame warmups.
The victory moved Kentucky to 5-7 in Quad 1 games, an important variable for NCAA Tournament seeding. One week ago, the Cats were just 1-7 against such competition. UK has since defeated Mississippi State, Tennessee and Florida — all Quad 1 foes — and picked up another win in that column with Texas A&M surging into the top 30 of the NCAA’s NET ratings. Kentucky beat the Aggies last month in Rupp.
The Wildcats will have two more opportunities to win Quad 1 games: Saturday against Auburn in Lexington and next weekend at Arkansas in the regular-season finale.
At the beginning of last week, many NCAA Tournament bracketologists had UK out of the March Madness field. The Cats had moved to an 8 seed on ESPN’s bracketology board by Tuesday morning. And the win at Florida will only bolster Kentucky’s résumé.
