The Kentucky Wildcats will travel to Gainesville take on the Florida Gators on Saturday afternoon. Game time is set for 3:00 PM ET on ABC. The Cats are huge 12.5-point underdogs.
Mark Pope’s squad is now 17-7 and one game back of the Gators in the SEC after winning three straight games and eight of the last nine. Last week, the Cats dominated the Oklahoma Sooners and mounted another awesome comeback win against the Tennessee Volunteers.
Kentucky has had the week off to rest and prepare for a matchup of the SEC’s elite. That sentence is hard to believe based on the way this season started, especially for Kentucky, but Florida, too. This will be an incredibly tough matchup, however, as the Gators look like a juggernaut ready to make another Final Four run.
The Cats have struggled this season against really good teams, so this will certainly be a test. But the good news is Kentucky is 6-0 in Gainesville since 2019 and 17-5 overall against the Gators since 2015.
Not to mention, this will be a big homecoming game for Denzel Aberdeen. DA spent three seasons at Florida before making his way to Lexington. Aberdeen was expected to take the reins at point guard this season for Florida, but the Gators chose not to match Kentucky’s NIL offer.
Suffice it to say, Todd Golden’s squad is doing just fine. Florida is 18-6 on the season after losing four games in the nonconference, three of which came to current top 6 teams. The Gators have really turned it on in SEC play once they figured out how to adjust by dominating everyone inside.
Florida has a massive team that thrives in the paint and on the glass. Rueben Chinyelu looks like Oscar Tshiebwe reincarnated in recent weeks, and Thomas Haugh is going to be a first round NBA Draft pick. To go along with Chinyelu and Haugh, Condon makes three Gators in the starting five that stand at 6’9 or taller.
The Cats will have their hands full in this one. It’s going to come down to crashing the glass and controlling the paint. Kentucky has to force Florida to beat them from the outside.
The turnaround this team has made since the calendar flipped has been fun, but Saturday is the big test. Let’s see what they can do.
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