By Ashley Scoby
Special to NKTribune
NASHVILLE — Sometimes it’s quick as a bolt of lightning, and sometimes the wind-up is a little slow. But when the Kentucky knockout punch does come, it hurts.
This time, in the SEC tournament quarterfinals, that knockout blow came in the form of a 14-2 run in a 5:15 span of the second half. And the Wildcats’ eventual 64-49 win ended Florida’s last gasp at an NCAA tournament bid.
The Gators were down five with a lifetime – 7:40 – remaining. They had shot 44.8 percent in the first half and had held a lead for portions of those first 20 minutes. Confidence was high, as it was when Florida played Kentucky close twice earlier this season, before succumbing to the wave of fresh legs wearing blue and white.
Like that bolt of lightning, this third tilt between Kentucky and Florida simply wasn’t close anymore.
“This has happened plenty of times before,” said Devin Booker. “It’s been close. That’s just when we take it over.”
Behind a Karl-Anthony Towns three-point play and two free throws from Trey Lyles, that five-point lead for UK doubled in less than a minute. Those two combined for four more free throws in the next 30 seconds, Tyler Ulis nailed a three-pointer and Bridgestone Arena – of which close to 90 percent was made up of Kentucky fans – erupted. Ulis let out a bloodcurdling yell on the way back down the floor, and Florida’s Michael Frazier air-balled a three-pointer to the crowd’s glee.
“We call it winning time,” Booker said. “We’ll come out of a timeout, and if we’re up five or 10, we’ll say ‘winning time.’ That’s when we have to lock in and get it to 15 or 20.”
Winning time was pretty absent for the now 32-0 Wildcats, until that moment.
The Gators started out hot, making five of their first seven from the field and taking a 12-7 lead by the 14:38 mark of the first half. At that point, Florida also held an early 6-1 rebounding advantage.
Florida used the same formula for the entire half, cutting into the lane, and knocking its big men loose inside. By halftime, 18 of the Gators’ 27 points had been scored in the paint against a much bigger Kentucky team.
The Wildcats cleaned up their act enough to take a 31-27 lead into the break. Towns pulled down eight of Kentucky’s 19 first-half rebounds. He actually had more rebounds in that half than Kentucky’s leading first-half scorer had points (Andrew Harrison scored seven).
Shooting 36.4 percent from the field, Kentucky wasn’t exactly dazzling the Rupp Arena south crowd.
But by the 5:51 mark of the first half, the Gators had missed seven of their last eight field goals and UK took advantage in the form of its 31-27 halftime lead.
“We didn’t play with as much energy as Florida played with to start the game,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said. “And they came in and I told them at halftime, if that’s what we have in store, like that’s how we’re going to do this, we’re going to have some problems.”
The problems have come for Kentucky this season, but they’ve always gone away – shoved back by a Towns dunk or a Ulis defensive stop. Kentucky can thank those bursts of its “we won’t lose” philosophy for its 32-0 – and still perfect – record.
Towns would finish with 13 points and 12 rebounds. Aaron Harrison also had 13 points. UK outscored Florida 19-3 from the free throw line.
A quarterfinals victory over a 16-17 Florida team might not have done anything for UK’s NCAA seeding. But the team is still playing in the tournament with the hunger of a team who wasn’t promised a berth.
“We may not need to win this tournament, but we need this tournament,” Towns said. “We need this tournament to grow and continue our process to be the best team we can possibly be going into the NCAA tournament.”
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.