UK basketball defeated Florida, and here’s what else happened on the first day of SEC play
Call it a bloodbath. Call it a gauntlet. Call it perhaps the most daunting slate of intraconference college basketball ever to be played.
The 2024-25 SEC men’s basketball season is here, with the league’s 16 schools now set to spend more than two months facing off against one another in what should be a stern examination of each school’s March Madness credentials.
League play in the SEC began Saturday, with all 16 teams in action across eight games staged from morning until night.
You probably know by now that the first of these tipoffs — a top-10 matchup between No. 10 Kentucky and No. 6 Florida — came right here in Lexington. Mark Pope’s Wildcats outlasted Florida in a classic, high-scoring affair. UK topped Florida by a 106-100 final tally that was every bit as entertaining as the score indicated.
But what went down in the other SEC games as the league’s men’s basketball programs all faced conference opposition for the first time?
Here’s a breakdown of what happened in each of the eight SEC men’s basketball games played Saturday.
Games are listed in order of start time.
No. 10 Kentucky 106, No. 6 Florida 100: Fifth-year guard Koby Brea went for a career-high 23 points and made a career-best seven 3-pointers as UK (12-2, 1-0) won a high-scoring affair in Rupp Arena.
Florida (13-1, 0-1) fell from the ranks of college basketball’s unbeaten teams with the defeat. Gators’ senior guard Walter Clayton Jr. tied his career high in points with 33 in the loss.
The Wildcats now have three wins this season against AP Top-10 ranked teams.
No. 24 Ole Miss 63, Georgia 51: Georgia, which is Kentucky’s next opponent on Tuesday night in Athens, went as cold as the incoming Kentucky weather in its SEC-opening loss in Oxford.
The Bulldogs (12-2, 0-1) shot just 2-for-18 from 3-point range with freshman forward Asa Newell (13 points and 13 rebounds) the lone bright spot. Former UK basketball commit Somto Cyril had four rebounds and one block in 12 minutes in his SEC debut for Georgia.
Ole Miss (12-2, 1-0) got 15 points from both fifth-years Jaemyn Brakefield and Matthew Murrell.
No. 1 Tennessee 76, No. 23 Arkansas 52: The nation’s top-ranked team looked every bit the part as Rick Barnes beat old friend John Calipari and the Hogs convincingly in Knoxville.
Tennessee (14-0, 1-0) got 29 points from high-scoring transfer guard Chaz Lanier and improved to 14-0 for the first time since the 1922-23 season. The Volunteers had a mammoth 51-29 rebounding advantage.
With the losses suffered by Florida and Oklahoma on the opening day of SEC play, Tennessee is now the only undefeated team left in Division I men’s college basketball.
Ex-Cat D.J. Wagner led the way for Arkansas (11-3, 0-1) with 17 points.
No. 17 Mississippi State 85, South Carolina 50: South Carolina was universally viewed by the predictive metrics as the weakest team in this season’s SEC. Perhaps now we know why.
The Gamecocks (10-4, 0-1) were throttled by 35 points at Mississippi State (13-1, 1-0), making just 16 of 55 shot attempts in the defeat. Junior guard Zachary Davis — who scored 22 points off the bench — accounted for more than 40% of South Carolina’s points himself.
Four Bulldogs scored in double figures, including a game-high 21 points from sophomore star Josh Hubbard. Senior guard Claudell Harris Jr. added 17 points and nine rebounds for Mississippi State.
No. 2 Auburn 84, Missouri 68: National player of the year front-runner and former Morehead State star Johni Broome continues to deliver for Auburn. He posted 24 points, seven rebounds and four blocks as the Tigers (13-1, 1-0) opened conference play with a commanding home win over Missouri (11-3, 0-1).
Former Northern Kentucky and Henry Clay High School star Marques Warrick led Missouri — which lost all 19 games it played against SEC opponents last season — with 19 points off the bench.
Vanderbilt 80, LSU 72: Home teams won seven of the eight SEC matchups to begin league play Saturday. The lone outlier came in Baton Rouge, where Vanderbilt (13-1, 1-0) knocked off LSU (11-3, 0-1) by eight points in Mark Byington’s first conference game as the Commodores’ coach.
Vanderbilt had five players score 11 or more points in the game, including three players off the bench.
LSU senior guard Cam Carter led all players in scoring with 22 points.
This was the only game on the opening Saturday of SEC play that didn’t include at least one team ranked in the AP Top 25 poll.
No. 5 Alabama 107, No. 12 Oklahoma 79: Fresh off the first Final Four appearance in program history, the Crimson Tide appear to be a force to be reckoned with yet again.
Nate Oats’ crew overwhelmed a previously unbeaten Oklahoma team in Tuscaloosa.
Alabama fifth-year guard Mark Sears headlined the Crimson Tide performance with 22 points and 10 assists. Crimson Tide fifth-year forward Grant Nelson also had a double-double with 12 points and 11 rebounds.
Alabama (12-2, 1-0) had 25 second-chance points to just four such points for Oklahoma.
While Oklahoma (13-1, 0-1) had five players score in double figures, the Sooners started slow and trailed by more than 20 points in the first half.
No. 13 Texas A&M 80, Texas 60: In an in-state blowout, Texas A&M (12-2, 1-0) rode 18 points from senior guard Zhuric Phelps to a rivalry win over SEC newcomer Texas (11-3, 0-1).
Longhorns freshman guard Tre Johnson — who entered the game as the SEC’s leading scorer at 19.7 points per game — was held to just 11 points on 2-for-13 shooting from the field.
Texas A&M — the nation’s best offensive rebounding team — had 11 boards on the offensive glass in the win. The Aggies also enjoyed a mammoth 48-16 advantage in points in the paint.
This story was originally published January 5, 2025 at 7:58 AM.
