Kentucky's defensive gameplan was not the reason Florida won

All things considered, Kentucky’s defense did what it needed to pull off the upset against Florida.

The Gators struggled to score the ball during Friday’s SEC Tournament quarterfinal. They shot 37.9 percent from the field (their third-worst mark this season) and went just 3-20 from long range (tied for their fewest made three-pointers). 71 points were their third-fewest of the season. Florida’s star player, Thomas Haugh, shot just 2-9 from the field. If you told the Big Blue Nation ahead of the game that the Gators would post those numbers, they’d have told you Kentucky was likely to win.

Hell, Florida even turned the ball over 18 times, just one off its season-high. UK flipped those into 18 points the other way. But the Wildcats shot just as poorly as Florida: 35.6 percent from the field and 5-23 from deep. And yet, Kentucky had the game within five points with less than a minute to go.

What decided the game was rebounding. Florida, among the nation’s top rebounding teams, had 21 more boards (50-29) overall and 10 more (18-8) on the offensive glass than the ‘Cats. That led to 21 second-chance points for the ‘Cats. Even with the Gators’ ice-cold shooting, they were gifted extra opportunity after extra opportunity. Florida’s size and ability to get out to loose balls first ultimately overwhelmed UK.

“When we played them at Rupp (last Saturday), they got us big in transition,” Freshman center Malachi Moreno said postgame. “I think they had somewhere close to 30 points in transition, so I think today was just to really cut down on the transition end and make them run their actions against our half-court defense, because in the past couple games, they haven’t really been able to run their stuff in the half-court. 

“We were doing a good job forcing tough misses, and then just those long rebounds kind of ended up in their hands. That’s kind of how they play. They always get the bucket off of the second rebound.”

In the official stat book, Florida recorded 24 fastbreak points in the regular-season finale in Lexington last weekend. That number was sliced down to 10 in Nashville — a statistical win for the ‘Cats. But in that matchup from six days ago, Florida only won the rebounding battle by one, 41-40. To beat a team as talented (and as huge) as the Gators, you have to win every key category.

“Last game we handled the glass, we couldn’t handle transition,” Head coach Mark Pope said. “This game we handled transition and we couldn’t handle the glass. You have to be able to do both. You have to.”

Unfortunately, Kentucky did not. That’s what separates a team like Florida, one fighting for a one-seed in the NCAA Tournament, from a team like the ‘Cats, one hoping to snag a seven-seed. UK played a great team about as well as you can defensively, but failed to close out possessions. It came back to bite them in an eight-point loss.

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