Kentucky’s SEC Tournament run ends with 71-63 quarterfinal loss to Florida
Florida pulled off the three-game season sweep.
On Friday afternoon in Nashville, 9-seeded Kentucky was knocked out of the SEC Tournament with a 71-63 quarterfinal loss to the top-seeded Gators. It was anything but a pretty game of basketball from either side, but rebounding proved to be the major difference. Florida outrebounded the Wildcats by 21 overall (50-29) and by 10 on the offensive glass (18-8), which led to 21 second-chance points for the Gators. Kentucky couldn’t throw the ball in the ocean, shooting 35.6 percent from the field with a 5-23 clip from long range.
Kentucky was led by 17 points and five rebounds from Denzel Aberdeen. He was aided by 14 points from Mo Dioubate and 10 more from Otega Oweh, although the latter shot just 5-18 from the floor. UK picked up 18 points off 18 Florida turnovers, even holding the Gators to a poor 37.9 percent shooting clip, but the UF bigs were too much to handle. UK turned the ball over 12 times, too.
The Wildcats will now look ahead to Selection Sunday to learn their NCAA Tournament seeding.
The start of this game had a familiar feel to what happened less than a week ago in Lexington. Florida punched first, scoring easy buckets and forcing the ‘Cats into way too many turnovers. Less than six minutes in, the Gators were already in front by double-digits. UK had already burned a pair of timeouts, too, losing one off an unsuccessful challenge call. But Dioubate helped land the counter punch.
Kentucky rattled off a 10-0 run, including a pair of triples from Dioubate and an Oweh slam, to knot the score at 20-20. Florida had to call a timeout as the Big Blue Nation was buzzing. But the Gators hit right back with a 6-0 run into a media break, a stretch that would extend to 13-0 over a five-minute span before an Aberdeen layup ended UK’s lengthy scoring drought. To pour salt in the wound, Florida would win its challenge call.
At the halftime break, the Gators led 37-28 as Kentucky was just 2-11 from deep and shooting 33 percent overall from the field. Florida wasn’t shooting the ball much better, but was dominating the glass.
Kentucky scored first after the intermission to make it a seven-point game, but outside shots still refused to go in. Florida ballooned its lead to 13 points at the first media timeout of the second half. That advantage eventually grew to 17 points before back-to-back dunks by the ‘Cats stopped the bleeding. The game slowed to a complete crawl from there. Even amid a five-minute field goal drought for the Gators, they still led by 13 points with just under eight minutes to play.
A fastbreak dunk from Oweh would make it just a 10-point game with 6:14 on the game clock, which forced Florida to burn a timeout. A few minutes later, Collin Chandler was fouled on a three-pointer, hitting all three to make it a single-digit game. Aberdeen then drew a charge and got fouled the other way, tacking on two more points. It was a 62-56 Florida lead with under three minutes left. Kentucky would get as close as five points in the final minute, but couldn’t get enough stops to complete the comeback.
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