Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s momentum-killing loss to Florida
Three takeaways from Kentucky basketball’s 71-67 loss to the Florida Gators on Saturday at Rupp Arena:
1. Kentucky suffers a bad flashback
Riding a three-game win streak, the Cats reverted. Bad habits thought to be broken resurfaced. Problems thought be fixed became problems again. Players so prominent during the winning streak went missing. Saturday brought a flashback, a bad one.
“We had been so good,” UK Coach John Calipari said afterward. “But they’re not robots.”
Back came the team that missed 11 of its 12 three-point attempts in the second half, that shot just 39.6 percent for the game. A team that committed 15 turnovers and, according to the coach, “made seven other bad passes that took away jump shots. … We were throwing it at guys ankles.”
Back came the team that once again could not execute down the stretch. The Cats appeared to have finally solved that problem in the 82-80 win over Auburn at Rupp and the 82-78 victory over Vanderbilt in Nashville, but against the visiting Gators, Kentucky was again failed by failed execution with the outcome on the line.
Leading 63-62 with 3:35 left, Calipari’s club scored just four points the rest of the way. And after a basket by Isaiah Jackson cut the Florida lead to 67-65, and Jackson followed with a blocked shot at the other end, UK frittered away the momentum by not being able to generate a shot on offense, forcing Calipari to call time with 37.3 seconds left on the game clock and just eight seconds remaining on the shot clock.
Out of the timeout, Devin Askew looked left, then passed the ball to the right side to Olivier Sarr, who rushed up a three-pointer that had little chance of finding the net. Florida rebounded. The Gators’ Tyree Appleby made both ends of a one-and-one to make the score 69-65 with 23.7 seconds left. And again UK failed to find a shot until finally Davion Mintz was fouled. The guard made both free throws but by that time a mere 10.5 seconds remained. And when Tre Mann hit two more free throws for Florida just a half-second later, UK’s win streak and momentum were over.
2. Give Mike White credit
The Florida coach changed the game, switching to a 3-2 zone after the Cats had jumped out to a 26-16 lead midway through the first half. Playing uptempo had been a key to Kentucky’s recent success, but the zone defense slowed the pace, made UK think more on the offensive end, which often led to turnovers or forced shots. After making seven of their first 11 shots, UK was just 3-for-14 from the floor the rest of the half.
Asked if not having a midweek game — last Tuesday night’s scheduled game against Texas A&M was canceled because of COVID-19 issues with the Aggies — hurt UK’s rhythm, Calipari said, “It was the 3-2 zone. It wasn’t taking a couple of days off.”
Down 39-38 at the half, Florida was the more determined team the second half. The Gators made 10 of their 19 field goal attempts for 52.6 percent over the final 20 minutes. Florida shot 52.1 percent for the game, the highest percentage by a Kentucky opponent all season.
After scoring 19 points and grabbing 13 rebounds in Florida’s win over Auburn on Tuesday, Mann scored 21 points with eight rebounds Saturday. Colin Castleton, the 6-foot-11 center, scored 14 points, with five boards and and four important assists. Appleby turned it over five times, but he also scored 11 points, grabbed five rebounds and dished five assists.
No doubt the Gators remembered the 76-58 thumping they absorbed at the hands of the Cats on Jan. 9 in Gainesville. Florida played as if it had something to prove, and proved it.
3. Kentucky’s SEC Tournament task is now tougher
I wrote last week that Kentucky had shown it was capable of winning the SEC Tournament — its only path to making the NCAA Tournament — but a much easier path to accomplishing that feat would be a top-four seed, meaning the Cats would have to win three straight games in Nashville instead of four.
That’s out the window now. Kentucky is 7-8 in the conference. Entering the day as the No. 8 seed, the Cats gained no ground with the defeat. Plus, they’ll have to play an angry Ole Miss team, which lost to Vanderbilt on Saturday, on Tuesday night in Oxford. Next Saturday, UK finishes up the regular season with South Carolina, the same team that rose from the ashes to spank Georgia 91-70 in Athens on Saturday.
“This team fought to get ourselves in a good position, a good position, and we had a couple of guys not show up,” Calipari said. “We weren’t the same team today.”
Truth be told, this is the same Kentucky team we’ve seen for most of the year, one capable of winning, yes, but one too inexperienced and flawed for sustained success, incapable of turning a corner and keeping it turned.
Said Calipari, “Back to the drawing board.”
This story was originally published February 27, 2021 at 7:32 PM.
