Brea, Kentucky hand Florida very first loss of season
Koby Brea scored 23 points and hit seven 3-pointers off the bench to lead No. 10 Kentucky over No. 6 Florida 106-100 on Saturday in Lexington, Kentucky, handing the Gators their very first loss of the season.The Gators(
13-1, 0-1 SEC) had actually cut an 80-69 Kentucky cause 89-87 on Walter Clayton Jr.’s totally free tosses with 4:40 remaining, however Lamont Butler hit a 3 as the shot clock wound down and included two free tosses to help the Wildcats (12-2, 1-0) hang on.
“If you guys didn’t have fun tonight, you need to quit today and discover a brand-new job,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope stated. “That was just an elite level physicality, bloodbath, competitive, just unbelievable efficiency after amazing efficiency going down the line, a terrific game and it’s much like, how enjoyable is this SEC league going to be? I mean … it’s unbelievable.”
Clayton scored 33 points, 12 of those in Florida’s 18-9 run before Butler’s 3 with 3:42 left. Alijah Martin scored 20 of his 26 points in the second half to rally Florida after Kentucky took a 52-42 halftime lead.Editor’s Picks
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Butler ended up with 19 points and eight helps as Kentucky placed 6 players in double digits.Brea played 22 minutes and shot 8-of-11 in general, striking 7 of 9 from 3.”He was wonderful tonight, wasn’t he?
“Pope stated of Brea.”And I don’t understand, you’re hard-pressed to make a real cogent argument that he’s not the very best shooter in the nation. He just– it’s ridiculous.”The Gators used offending rebounding to take an early lead
and then battled their method back in the second half, thanks in part to 15 offensive boards that led to 31 second-chance points.In the very first 10 minutes, Kentucky was outrebounded 12-2 and trailed 20-11.
Over the rest of the first half, Kentucky held a 16-9 rebounding edge and a 10-point halftime lead.Florida cut the Kentucky cause 70-69 at the 12:05 mark of the second half when coach
Todd Golden took a 30-second timeout. Nevertheless, the Wildcats scored the next 10 points.The Gators, who had held their previous four challengers to 20 %shooting on 3-pointers, giving up about five threes
per game, allowed the Wildcats to shoot 48.3% from the arc with 14 made 3s. Both groups go back to action Tuesday night. Florida hosts top-ranked Tennessee while Kentucky goes on the road to Georgia.Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.