{"id":190633,"date":"2026-03-13T20:14:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-13T20:14:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190633\/"},"modified":"2026-03-13T20:14:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-13T20:14:09","slug":"final-florida-71-kentucky-63","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/190633\/","title":{"rendered":"FINAL: Florida 71, Kentucky 63"},"content":{"rendered":"

What Happened
\nNASHVILLE, Tenn.\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0Junior forward Alex Condon<\/a> scored 22 points, grabbed 10\u00a0rebounds and was a rare offensive bright spot Friday — for\u00a0either team — in top-seeded Florida’s 71-63\u00a0defeat of ninth-seeded Kentucky in their Southeastern Conference Tournament quarterfinal game at Bridgestone Arena.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Condon went seven of 12 from the floor and eight of 11 from the free-throw line to help the Gators open a 16-point lead with 11 minutes to play. UF, though, went stone-cold\u00a0over the final 10 minutes and got careless with the ball on the way to shooting just 29% in the second half and turning the ball over 12. The combination allowed the Wildcats (just 35.6 percent for the game and 3-for-12 from deep) to close the margin to five, 66-61,\u00a0with 1:18 to go, behind former UF guard Denzel Aberdeen’s<\/a> team-high 17 points.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Gators guard Xaivian Lee<\/a> (11 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists) threw water on the rally with a step-back, late shot-clock\u00a03-pointer from the top of the key with 40 seconds remaining to push the margin to eight and safe enough to play another day (read on).\u00a0<\/p>\n

The win was the third for Florida over Kentucky this season, a feat the Gators had achieved only once before (2014) in the series 99-year history. \n<\/p>\n

\"\"
\nUF forward Alex Condon with a flush during Friday’s xxx against Kentucky. <\/p>\n

Turning Point\u00a0
\nBig Blue Nation was alive and loud when the Wildcats reeled off 10 consecutive points in the first half to erase a 20-10 deficit. The Gators, though, answered that run with 13 consecutive points and kept at least a four-possession lead until the final three minutes.
\n\u00a0
\nStaggering Statistic
\nFlorida and Kentucky played 120 minutes of basketball during the 2025-26 season and the Wildcats never led in any of the three games. The teams were tied for a total of two minutes and five seconds.\u00a0
\n\u00a0
\nUp Next
\nFlorida (26-6)\u00a0will play the winner of Friday afternoon’s second game, either fifth-seeded Tennessee (22-10) or fourth-seeded Vanderbilt (24-7), in Saturday’s tournament semifinals. The Gators defeated both teams during the regular season, beating the Volunteers 100-77 at home and the Commodores 98-94 about two miles up the road from Bridgestone.<\/p>\n

Email senior writer\u00a0Chris Harry<\/a> at\u00a0chrish@gators.ufl.edu<\/a>. Find his story archives\u00a0here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What Happened NASHVILLE, Tenn.\u00a0 \u2013\u00a0Junior forward Alex Condon scored 22 points, grabbed 10\u00a0rebounds and was a rare offensive…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63018,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-190633","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190633","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=190633"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190633\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63018"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=190633"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=190633"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=190633"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}