Kentucky fights back but falls to Florida, 92-83

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Florida’s recent run of dominance over SEC basketball opponents continued Saturday.

This time, it was the Kentucky Wildcats on the wrong side of the score.

The Cats fell into another early hole, but they dug out of it and actually made things interesting in the second half before dropping a 92-83 decision to the Gators at the O’Connell Center.

Kentucky trailed by 15 points in the first half — and the Cats were down nine at halftime — before going on a 7-0 run in the first two minutes of the second half to cut Florida’s lead to 43-41.

UF’s Thomas Haugh responded to that UK flurry with an and-one bucket to put the Gators ahead 46-41, and Xaivian Lee followed that with a 3-pointer to make it a 49-41 game.

The Wildcats hung around for the first 10 minutes of the period, but they never got back within one possession for the rest of the game.

With Florida up 65-58 and the midway point of the second half approaching, Alex Condon and Urban Klavzar combined to go on a two-man, 9-0 run that put the Gators ahead 74-58 with 8:09 remaining. Kentucky never got closer than five points the rest of the way, and that margin — an 88-83 Florida lead — came after Collin Chandler hit a 3-pointer with just 36.8 seconds left.

Lee hit two free throws to give the Gators a 90-83 lead after Chandler’s shot. The Wildcats turned it over on their next possession, and the Florida fans went into full celebration mode from there.

UK senior Denzel Aberdeen, who played his first three college seasons at Florida and helped the Gators win a national championship last year, had a team-high 19 points in his return to Gainesville.

Chandler was 5 for 7 from 3-point range and scored 18 points. Otega Oweh joined them in double figures with 13 points, scoring his 1,000th point as a Wildcat in the first half.

Malachi Moreno scored 11 points and added a team-high 11 rebounds. Florida came into the game leading the country with a plus-14.8 rebounding margin. The two sides grabbed 20 boards each in the first half, but the Gators outrebounded the Cats 25-17 in the second half.

Five Florida players scored in double figures: Lee (22), Klavzar (19), Haugh (17), Condon (14) and Reuben Chinyelu (10). Condon added 11 rebounds, and Chinyelu — the leading rebounder in the SEC — also had 11 boards.

Mark Pope’s Wildcats dropped to 17-8 overall and 8-4 in the SEC with Saturday’s loss. They had won eight of their previous nine games and would have taken over the top spot in the conference standings with a win over Florida.

The Gators (19-6, 10-2 SEC) were 12.5-point favorites at tipoff and had won their past four games — including three on the road — by an average of 27.3 points.

This marked the first time Florida has defeated Kentucky in the O’Connell Center since March 3, 2018 — when reigning NBA MVP Shai Gilgeous-Alexander was a member of the Wildcats — snapping a six-game winning streak for the Wildcats in Gainesville.

Florida jumped out to a 10-2 lead in the game’s opening minutes, with Lee hitting a 3-pointer on the opening possession and then nailing another with 16:35 left in the first half, forcing Pope to use his first timeout before the first TV stoppage of the afternoon.

Aberdeen, who was booed by the Florida fans during the starting lineups — and again every time he touched the ball — made Kentucky’s first basket of the game but was already 1 for 4 from the field by the time Pope used that timeout less than four minutes in.

The Cats went down double digits for the first time on a free throw to make it 18-8 with 14:14 remaining in the first half.

Lee sparked another Pope timeout a short time later, hitting yet another 3-pointer — making him 3 for 3 from deep on the day and upping his early scoring total to 13 points — to give Florida a 30-17 lead. Boogie Fland then stole the ball from Jasper Johnson as he was crossing halfcourt and took it the other way for a dunk that sent the O-Dome into a frenzy.

Pope called his second timeout there, his team trailing 32-17 with 9:24 still left in the first half.

Following that timeout, Florida missed seven consecutive shots and Kentucky scored 10 straight points, narrowing the Gators’ lead to 32-27. Amid that flurry, Oweh scored the 1,000th point of his Kentucky career and a brief “Go Big Blue!” chant broke out in the O’Connell Center.

Florida fans quickly drowned out the chant, and the Gators finally found the bottom of the net on their next possession. Kentucky never trailed by double digits again in the first half, but the Cats still went into the halftime locker room down 43-34.

UK was once again playing without projected NBA draft pick Jayden Quaintance, point guard Jaland Lowe and wing Kam Williams — the sixth consecutive game that all three of those Wildcats were sidelined together. All three started in their most recent appearance with the Cats.

Lowe is officially out for the season with a shoulder injury, and while Pope declined Thursday to rule out Quaintance (knee) and Williams (foot) for the season, neither player is currently engaging in basketball activities. It was the 10th consecutive missed game for Quaintance, who has appeared in just four games this season after undergoing surgery for a torn ACL last March.

Florida had its full roster available to play Saturday.

The Cats and Gators will meet again in Rupp Arena on March 7 in the regular season finale.

Next up for Kentucky will be a matchup with the Georgia Bulldogs at 9 p.m. ET Tuesday in Lexington.

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