By Ashley Scoby
Special to NKyTribune
If you were to write a blueprint of how to beat the now 23-0 Kentucky Wildcats this season, “take away their depth” would surely be at the top of your list.
And that’s exactly what Florida did on Saturday night: Only five UK players scored (four if you don’t count Andrew Harrison’s single free throw in the closing minutes). It was a far cry from most of the rest of Kentucky’s games this year, where eight or nine players regularly find their way into the scoring column.
Aaron Harrison, after a poor outing against Georgia, scored 23. Willie Cauley-Stein added 13, including a monstrous dunk with about 12 minutes remaining that is probably still sending shockwaves through Gainesville. Karl-Anthony Towns was assertive in the paint and scored 19. And Devin Booker went 6-of-11 from the field for 12 points.
Then: Andrew Harrison’s free throw, followed by a whole bunch of zeros in UK’s scoring column.
And to that, Kentucky fans will surely utter the now-familiar phrase: “They found a way.” Final score: Kentucky 68, Florida 61.
By the end of the season, “they found a way” may very well be the slogan for this Kentucky team, which has gone to overtime periods against two SEC teams, and has largely failed to dominate conference play in the way people expected.
But the wins keep racking up. And the perfection that has been this 23-0 season so far stems from Kentucky’s response to the imperfections. The Wildcats thus matched the 1965-66 team for the second-best win streak in school history.
As far as imperfections go, there were plenty in Gainesville. One – the obvious one – was the home crowd, which is always raucous when UK comes to town. Students camped out last night to get into the building early, and ESPN’s College GameDay was set up at the O’Connell Center.
Then came the news that Trey Lyles had not made the trip to Florida and wouldn’t play because of an undisclosed illness. Lyles has been a versatile threat both on the offensive end, and in terms of rebounding, all season.
Kentucky only hit 3-of-14 from behind the three-point arc. Its starting point guard, in Andrew Harrison, had more turnovers (3) and fouls (4) than points (1) or assists (2). The Wildcats had 15 total turnovers, compared to Florida’s 11.
The Gators kept driving untouched to the basket for uncontested layups. They also hit six threes.
But remember what we said about “finding a way?” Kentucky did.
The four Wildcats who did score in double figures did so with authority – each shooting 50 percent or better from the field. And they – combined with Andrew Harrison – went 21-of-22 from the foul line, which was crucial in a game that wasn’t decided until the final couple minutes.
Throughout the week on social media, several Kentucky fans have expressed a desire to get a loss “out of the way,” and why not against Florida in a tough road environment? It would teach the No. 1 team in the country what it needed to learn before heading into the final stretch of the regular season.
But a game in which everything seemingly went wrong, yet still ended up as a win, could do the same.
Florida certainly got the Wildcats’ attention. And if that kind of scare can make the top-ranked team in the country learn to shoot 96 percent from the free throw line in order to win – well, that’s the perfect lesson.
Ashley Scoby is a senior journalism major at the University of Kentucky and a KyForward sports writer. She has reported on the Wildcats for wildcathoops.com, vaughtsviews.com andkysportsreport.com as well as for newspapers in Danville and Glasgow. She will begin a summer internship with Sports Illustrated magazine in New York this June.