Florida knocks off Kentucky in physical opener of SEC tournament
All the billboards and street paint scattered across Broadway on Friday let any spring break visitor unequivocally know that the SEC tournament was in town. If nothing else, Nashville is a tourist town. Marketing isn’t an issue. But just as folks followed the signs and were settling in for the first of the four quarterfinal games in Bridgestone Arena, Florida and Kentucky decided they were no longer as interested in basketball, and the afternoon started operating as a WWE tryout.
There was a final score — one with some meaning, for that matter — but it was the elbows and animosity that defined Florida’s 71-63 takedown of Kentucky to advance to the SEC semifinals. Maybe that’s what happens when two rivals face each other for the third time in a season — the second time in six days. Maybe it’s what happens when, for whatever reason, a changing of the guard is underway. Most kingdoms don’t fall without a battle.
“It was kind of the same story each of the three times we played these guys this year,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “We had an opportunity to extend to a point where they couldn’t get back in the ball game, and we just got really sloppy.”
Every game No. 4 Florida (26-6) wins this weekend is a step closer to procuring a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, which, if secured, would be the first time the school has danced on the top seed line in consecutive seasons. Beating Kentucky doesn’t make it official, given the Gators could likely face two more ranked foes in as many days. It does, however, mean something.
Kentucky, under coach John Calipari, spent the previous decade authoring a run of conference dominance that has, literally, only been matched one other time … by Kentucky. The Wildcats won four consecutive SEC tournaments from 2015 to 2019. Between 2012 and 2019, Kentucky didn’t win the conference or make the Elite Eight in only one season. No other school has even won the SEC tournament in back-to-back years since Florida during its national championship seasons of the 2000s.
Yet Calipari’s at Arkansas in a locker room across the hall now, and the SEC’s primary catalyst of fear is a rotating title. A national championship, plus Gatorade money and a player development prowess unparalleled at the Power Four level, was enough to make Florida a brand that made multiple Kentucky fans wince when their team won on Thursday. Facing the Gators once more might be less fun than getting to go home a day earlier.
The Gators like that.
“We want to be physical, make teams not like playing,” center Rueben Chinyelu said. “We knew what they were because we’d played them, so it’s good to finish things the way we did.”
Friday was a fitting elbow-filled statement that the crown might adorn another head. The Wildcats gave Florida everything they had, pulling within six in the final minutes. “Lexington South,” as Bridgestone came to be known by during that previous run, rocked with each Kentucky punch, frequently engaged in five-point swings with the Gators. But for each one, Florida had a response.
Fittingly, the Gators’ primary holdovers from March of yesteryear starred again, with Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh scoring 22 and 13. To snuff out Kentucky’s final push, guard Xaivian Lee drained a three from somewhere in Murfreesboro, which brought him to 11. This wasn’t one of Florida’s recent 100-point outings, though, where you could’ve gotten free throws if you were just in the arena. It was messy, and Florida had enough muscle, outrebounding Kentucky by 21, to escape.
That might just be what happens when a waning power and a billowing giant meet — a true emotion-riddled fight.
“We just go in there and fight,” Haugh said after the game. “We’ll do it again tomorrow.”
That’ll be with Tennessee or Vanderbilt, and twice more would mean it’s time to evaluate whether the SEC is in new hands. Florida, rightfully, thinks it is.
