‘Exhausted’ Kentucky laments missed opportunities after losing to Florida in overtime
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Game day: Florida 94, No. 10 Kentucky 91 (OT)
Click below for more of the Herald-Leader and Kentucky.com’s coverage of Wednesday’s men’s basketball game between Kentucky and Florida at Rupp Arena in Lexington.
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He hadn’t yet taken his seat before his succinct summation of Wednesday night’s game came out.
“It stinks, folks,” John Calipari said.
Not long before, his Kentucky Wildcats seemed on the verge of victory.
When sophomore center Ugonna Onyenso pulled down an offensive rebound and banked in the putback with 39.8 seconds left to give Kentucky a four-point lead over Florida, the Rupp Arena crowd went bonkers and the Cats appeared to be on their way to a hard-fought win.
And then it fell apart. A few seconds of regulation and five minutes of extra basketball later, the Gators had pulled out a 94-91 victory over the 10th-ranked Wildcats, returning the favor for a similarly played matchup that went Kentucky’s way 25 days earlier in Gainesville.
“If anybody watched this game — this was a fun game to watch,” Calipari said of round two. “It was not a fun game to coach.”
This one featured 15 ties and 29 lead changes. Kentucky led by as many as 10 points — that advantage coming in the final minute of the first half — but the Gators closed within 41-36 at halftime and scored the first six points out of the break to briefly take the lead.
From there, it was back and forth.
A flurry of action led up to Onyenso’s possibly game-clinching putback to give Kentucky an 83-79 lead, perhaps the highlight in a career night for the sophomore center, who finished the game with 13 points, 16 rebounds, eight blocked shots and — maybe the most amazing stat given his physical play — zero fouls.
On Florida’s next possession, Onyenso blocked Tyrese Samuel’s attempt at the basket — for an instant, seemingly putting an exclamation mark on his big night. Instead, the Gators retrieved the ball and Samuel ended up with the putback. Kentucky 83, Florida 81.
The Gators then fouled UK freshman Rob Dillingham, who might’ve been able to ice it with two free throws. He made the first. He missed the second. And Florida got one more chance.
Zyon Pullin dribbled across halfcourt with 10 seconds left. He drove around a screen to the right, making his way inside the arc. On the left side of the court, Walter Clayton Jr. — 5-for-10 on 3-pointers on the night so far — flared out to the wing while his defender, Reed Sheppard, took a sidestep in the direction of Pullin, who whipped a pass across his body to the wide-open Clayton.
“I helped too much — should have stayed out on him,” Sheppard said. “He relocated a little bit. And I lost him.”
Sheppard quickly recovered. Clayton pump-faked. The UK freshman bit and flew by him.
“And he made the 3,” Sheppard finished. “It was a good shot. On my end, I can’t do that in a late-game situation like that. I gotta be locked in and know that they need a 3 to tie it. And I can’t get sucked in like that on the defensive end.”
After this one, there was plenty of second-guessing and self-reflection.
Sheppard, the starting point guard in place of an injured D.J. Wagner, finished with 24 points, eight rebounds and six assists. But afterward, that final play of regulation was clearly on his mind.
Onyenso grabbed 16 rebounds — six more than his career high — but he turned the talk to those he didn’t come up with.
“I know I had a great rebounding night. But I fumbled some,” he said. “And I’m still going to keep working. I’m going to keep working. It’s a tough loss.”
Dillingham, who missed UK’s last game with a stomach illness, finished this one with 20 points. But he missed that free throw in the final seconds of regulation, then a shot in overtime with a little more than a minute left and Kentucky down two points. That turned out to be the Wildcats’ final possession with a chance to tie or take the lead.
Instead, Clayton’s final 3-pointer with 1:42 left gave the Gators the lead for good, and they finished off the Wildcats at the free-throw line.
Calipari got in on the second-guessing. He didn’t have any regrets about not fouling up three at the end of regulation, noting that UK’s defense was designed to make Florida shoot a 2, not wanting to foul a terrific offensive rebounding team with so much time still on the clock.
“I’d rather play it out,” he said.
But the guys playing it out had been playing for quite some time.
With Wagner (ankle) and Justin Edwards (leg) both sidelined — and sophomore guard Adou Thiero apparently tweaking his lingering back injury yet again — Calipari rolled with the same five guys for the final quarter-plus of regulation. When UK’s coach made a series of subs with 10:25 remaining in the second half, it left Sheppard, Dillingham, Antonio Reeves, Tre Mitchell and Onyenso on the court together. They stayed there for the rest of the half.
Asked how difficult it is for players to stay engaged — both physically and mentally — for a stretch like that against a team like Florida, the UK coach smiled and shrugged.
“Hard,” he acknowledged. “It’s really hard.”
Calipari said he probably should have subbed freshman Aaron Bradshaw in for Mitchell “a bunch more” toward the end. But he noted the injury to Thiero, who spent much of the game on the exercise bike at courtside — staying loose when he wasn’t playing — then disappeared through the tunnel, clearly in pain, after being taken out at that 10:25 mark. He returned to the bench shortly thereafter and gave a thumbs up to the UK coaches, but he didn’t actually get back into the game until midway through overtime, when Dillingham went down with cramps and had to exit.
“It’s kind of like we got tired out,” Calipari said. “But there was not a whole lot of subs. It was like, ‘Here’s who we have.’”
Bradshaw didn’t play after leaving the game with 10:25 left in regulation. Jordan Burks played two minutes and 22 seconds, his first action in 18 days. Zvonimir Ivisic didn’t play at all in the second half, UK’s coaches saying in recent days that he’s behind defensively.
As a result, Sheppard played 45 minutes. Dillingham played 39 minutes. Mitchell played 38 minutes. Reeves played 37 minutes (and Calipari said it would have been more if not for foul trouble). And Onyenso played 33 minutes.
Kentucky’s coach noted his UMass players from the 1990s often played 39 or 40 minutes, especially during his team’s 1996 Final Four run. “And if it went to overtime, they played five more minutes,” he said, adding that if you ask a player whether they want to play or sit, they’re going to want to stay on the court.
“They all want to play,” he said. “But it’s hard when you’re in that kind of game.”
He lamented the late-game breakdowns, specifically pointing to the final 3-pointer that sent it to overtime.
“Like, ‘Why did you do that?’ kind of breakdowns,” Calipari said. “And I’m owning it up to: They were exhausted. Like, the last 3. Why did you leave that guy? We were guarding the 3-point line, and he stopped in the lane and you left your man. Why did you do that? Well, he’s probably exhausted. But who are you gonna take out? And who are you gonna put in?”
With a little less than two minutes left in regulation, Sheppard had closed out on Clayton in the corner and blocked a 3-point attempt there. Reeves grabbed the rebound, and he hit two free throws to put Kentucky up four points, part of that late-game frenzy that appeared to be headed the Wildcats’ way. In the end, they ran out of gas.
“We got stuff to work on,” Calipari said. “I haven’t lost any faith in this team. I believe in the team. We just gotta get healthy and have a full roster.”
For a team so deep on talent, a couple of absences and 45 minutes proved too much.
“And some of the guys played 45 minutes.”
Next game
No. 5 Tennessee at No. 10 Kentucky
When: 8:30 p.m. EST Saturday
TV: ESPN
Radio: WLAP-AM 630, WBUL-FM 98.1
Records: Tennessee 15-5 (5-2 SEC), Kentucky 15-5 (5-3 SEC)
Series: Kentucky leads 160-77
Last meeting: Kentucky won 66-54 on Feb. 18, 2023, at Rupp Arena
This story was originally published February 1, 2024 at 12:57 AM.
