KSR Today: Kentucky holds off Florida
One week after Kentucky came up short at home in a prime-time spot against Kansas, the Wildcats did not fail to finish the deal in front of a strong Rupp Arena crowd on Saturday night. Thanks to a solid offensive performance against a top-10 Florida defense, Kentucky left the floor with a Quadrant 2 win.
Cason Wallace led the way with 20 points on 10 field goal attempts with some big plays down the stretch when Kentucky’s defense had issues getting stops. But in the end, it was enough for a 72-67 win as the Wildcats improved to 16-7 (7-3) with another huge home game right around the corner on Tuesday when Arkansas makes the trip to Lexington.
Let’s dive into some postgame content.
Cason Wallace and Sahvir Wheeler team up to beat Florida
Kentucky has now won six consecutive SEC games. During that stretch, true freshman Cason Wallace has taken over as the team’s primary point guard. That has forced senior Sahvir Wheeler to the bench. However, the former Georgia transfer has put consecutive good games together against Ole Miss and Florida.
On Saturday against Florida, we saw this twosome at their best.
The duo combined to give the Wildcats 28 combined points on 15 field goal attempts and five assists. However, Wheeler took a secondary role in crunch time and allowed Wallace to run the show and get some big late buckets for the offense.
Roles are slowly being defined for this group and that is leading to wins.
Colin Castleton wins the big man battle
In the pregame lead-up to this SEC matchup, most of the attention was drawn to the five-spot. Colin Castleton and Oscar Tshiebwe are two of the best centers in college basketball and we saw two excellent duels between these two last season.
But Castleton owned the matchup on Saturday night.
The former Michigan transfer led the Gators with 25 points on 16 field goal attempts with 8 rebounds, 5 assists, and 3 blocks in 37 minutes. Meanwhile, Kentucky’s star big struggled.
Tshiebwe finished the game with just 4 points on 14 field goal attempts in 35 minutes before fouling out. The former West Virginia transfer gobbled up 15 rebounds, but was mostly ineffective in one-on-one situations against Castleton.
However, this is a sign of progress for Kentucky. The Cats were able to win an SEC game without a productive scoring performance from Tshiebwe. That’s a good sign as roles are becoming defined for Kentucky basketball.
John Calipari, players, and KSR react to Kentucky’s latest win
Don’t worry, we have your typical video content from last night’s Florida win up on the KSR YouTube Page. John Calipari and players fielded questions from the media as the Wildcats got a solid Quadrant 2 at Rupp Arena to help boost their NCAA Tournament resume.
After the interviews, our own Drew Franklin and Jack Pilgrim discussed how things shook out in another Rapid Reaction video. Smash those play buttons.
Kentucky honors Mike Pratt
At halftime of the Florida-Kentucky, the Wildcats did something they haven’t done in awhile at Rupp Arena. A jersey was retired as UK honored the late, great Mike Pratt.
Pratt’s No. 22 jersey was raised to the rafters of Rupp Arena, honoring his career as an All-American player and 21 seasons as an analyst on UK radio broadcasts. Pratt, who died on June 16 following a three-year battle with cancer, was represented by his wife, Marcia, his teammate Dan Issel, and additional members of the family.
KSR has the video of the jersey retirement ceremony ready for your consumption. Now a program legend can rightfully be remembered forever at Rupp Arena.
Jim Boeheim is Grandpa Simpson
Things are not going well for Syracuse basketball in the ACC. The Orange are well on their way to missing a third NCAA Tournament in four seasons and this once proud program in the Big East has not had a top-20 finish at KenPom since 2014. Cuse is no longer nationally relevant despite the fact that Jim Boeheim is in year 34 in Central New York.
Well, Boeheim tried to make Syracuse relevant last night but not in a good way.
Following a close road win over Boston College, Boeheim took the podium at his postgame press conference and decided to complain about the current state of college basketball. While doing that, he accused conference foes Miami, Pittsburgh, and Wake Forest of buying teams with NIL. I don’t know about that, Jim.
Wake Forest head coach Steve Forbes quickly fired back. Meanwhile, none of those three teams mention rank inside the top-35 at KenPom, so if they are cheating they are not doing it very well. Since the move to the ACC, Boeheim has been outwardly bitter regarding Syracuse’s place in basketball without the Big East and he seems to get grumpier with each game this season.
He is truly college basketball’s version of Grandpa Simpson yelling at the clouds.
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