Kentucky vs. Florida Prediction, Game Preview

“As I told our guys, beating Kentucky is great”.

Losing a game because you are out-played is one thing – just as the Cats were at Louisville and Tennessee – but to be out-fought and out-hustled when you are clearly the more talented as superior team is another thing. “But we are, too”. No. 19 South Carolina’s 8-1 SEC record is its best conference mark midway through the league schedule since the 1996-97 team won its first 11 conference games.

Not with a team this talented but United Kingdom has now lost three of its last four games and if not for a 30-point second-half performance by Monk against Georgia it would be four straight.

John Calipari missed his scheduled meeting with reporters due to a meeting and assistant Joel Justus didn’t say whether the two guards will play Saturday at Florida. “Sometimes you’ve got to hit bottom and maybe we have hit bottom, maybe we haven’t hit bottom”. But I knew after Tennessee we had an issue and I said, ‘You’re going to lose the next two or three if you don’t change’. Five players scored during the run.

On the evening Florida shot 45 percent from the floor, while holding Mizzou to just 30 percent. In the NCAA Tournament where games are typically slower and guard play in the halfcourt in emphasized, Kentucky’s inability to shoot may well come back to haunt them. “Hopefully it helps. We’ll see”. OK, now it’s a choice: Do you want to be at your worst? The No. 24 Gators have followed up back-to-back loss to SC and Vanderbilt with three straight blowout victories, beating LSU 106-71, routing Oklahoma 84-52 and easily handing Missouri 93-54 on Thursday. He added five rebounds and six assists in one of the most complete games of his four-year career. “It’s amusing that tonight we played our best offensive basketball as well”. “These guys, to become more physical – not necessarily worrying about getting the rebounds themselves but making sure that the guy they’re guarding doesn’t get the offensive rebound – that’s huge”. But that rise has very rarely featured triumphs over the Kentucky Wildcats – the monument to hardwood greatness the Gators have had to summit time and again – like the one that Florida scored on Saturday night.

With what may have been the best performance of his four-year career, Kasey Hill simultaneously led Florida to victory and dramatically improved his legacy.

For the third straight game, Kentucky had a season-low point total in the first half.

Canyon Barry chipped in 14 points and KeVaughn Allen finished with 12 for the Gators, who outran the Wildcats (18-5, 8-2) up and down the court.

De’Aaron Fox, who returned after missing the game against Georgia on Tuesday, led United Kingdom with 19 points. He didn’t practice all week.

NUMBERS GAME: Kentucky’s Malik Monk has the two highest-scoring games of any freshman in school history. The SEC’s leading scorer, Monk tallied 31 points and hit seven 3-pointers during the second half and overtime of this past Tuesday’s win against Georgia. It shot only 30.2 percent from the field and had almost as many turnovers (five) as made baskets (seven) in the opening period. Three came in a 71-second span that created UK’s largest first-half deficit (30-17) and prompted a timeout with 4:36 left.

The Wildcats have played better opponents (UNC, UCLA, and others), but the Gators are red hot and their crowd will be on fire on Saturday evening. Having just made a 3 to give the Gators their first double-digit lead, his shot set up Hester’s 3-pointer seconds later. Florida shots just 34.3 percent and committed 12 turnovers.