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Florida Gators 49, Kentucky Wildcats 64: Three Straight Is Oh So Great, But UK's Offense Wasn't

Kentucky's offense looked lost in much of this victory, but the defense is a constant.

By Glenn Logan
Don McPeak-USA TODAY Sports

The Kentucky Wildcats successfully extended their undefeated season to 32 games today against the Florida Gators, and also repaid last season when the Gators took down the Wildcats down three straight times. This time it’s Kentucky’s turn, and once again, Florida was unable to cope with the size of the Wildcats inside. They gave a solid effort and did not give up, but the Wildcats were relentless, and despite a slow start and generally unimpressive offensive execution, got the convincing win.

More: Alligator Army UKAthleticcs.com Recap

Florida definitely had a plan and came to play in this one. They didn’t play well offensively, though, and that wound up making it difficult to win. Defensively, I thought they may have played their best game of the season. They really outhustled Kentucky, who seemed to sleepwalk through several portions of the game offensively, but Florida just turned the ball over too much to really have a chance.

Box score

Observations

  • Kentucky took a lot of bad shots in this game. Some of them were just nasty, ugly shots that we all probably hoped where out of their system. Apparently not. Interestingly enough, hardly any of them were bad shots from three, most were in the mid- to short-range.

  • 38% is some pretty poor shooting. Give Florida’s defense credit, but honestly, I saw it as more of the same from Kentucky — clueless about how to handle a zone defense. It was an aggressive zone, though, and that held down the open perimeter looks for the Wildcats

  • Four turnovers is outstanding. I don’t know what you can say bad about Kentucky’s ballhandling lately, it has been superior, and the margin is what is killing our opponents. In both recent games, Florida’s very high turnover rate, and Kentucky’s low turnover rate has been a major factor.

  • I don’t think we’re going to be that happy with the rebounding, even though at times Kentucky dominated the glass.

  • Florida noticeably lacked energy after the under eight timeout in the second half. It was obvious.

  • The Gators scored as many points in the paint as Kentucky did, and their offense did as good a job as anybody scoring down low.

  • Seven assists on 21 made baskets is a disturbingly low number. Perhaps it’s just a Florida thing. We had a similarly low assist rate in the last game.

This was the kind of game that I expected to see from Kentucky after a layoff, and I hope they’ve gotten it out of their system. It was a messy, ugly offensive effort and although the defense was better than the offense, I thought there were too many breakdowns that the Wildcats shouldn’t be making at this point in the season.

Sorry about the lateness of the postgame, It’s tax time for businesses.

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