FanPost

#1 UKHOOPS 71- #8 Florida 67- Postmortem: Survive & Advance

So, sometimes it just doesn't matter what the score is, nor who did what, nor how something happened. You just take the win and move on. Thus we have the story of UK-Florida today. On a day where only one half of basketball was all you had, just make sure that it is the last half. And when it counted, Senior Amber Smith took this team of Wildcats in her hands and forced them to her will.

And UK did respond.

The Wildcats trailed 38-25 before fighting back with a 15-4 run. Keyla Snowden's 3 put them ahead 45-44 with 13:04 left, their first lead since 6-4. And it was tight through the finish. A'dia Mathies scored 21 of her 24 points in the second half for Kentucky, and Snowden had 17.

But on this day, the credit for bringing UK back from the brink goes to Smith. She entered the game just before UK started that 15-4 run. Calmly, methodically, and with some really nice precision passes and assists, she led UK back to the lead, and more importantly, led UK's defense back to the forefront of the game. UK made more FT's (25) than Florida attempted (20). And by the 12:00 minute mark to go in the second half, Florida was gassed and it showed. They started making mistakes, turnovers and fouls that in the first half they just were not committing.

And when that happened, A'Dia Mathies shots started falling. 21 of her 24 pts to be exact. 3-pt shots, FT's, jumpers, all of them started finding their way to the bottom of the net. Mathies was 3-5 from behind the arc, 7-10 at the line, and 7-19 from the field.

UK scored 46 points in the second half, compared to 25 in the first, while limiting Florida to 35. Next up for UK is the winner of the LSU/Arkansas game this evening.