Following a perfect non-conference season the Florida Gators (13-0) will get right into the meat of their season when they open SEC play January 4th against who else but the Kentucky Wildcats (10-2, though they will play one more buy game after this article has been written but before the matchup with Florida) on the road in Lexington.
Kentucky went through a high-profile coaching change in the offseason when John Calipari left for Arkansas, ultimately choosing BYU’s Mark Pope. Pope, a very popular Wildcat, was known for his fun style of play at BYU and the smooth transition he made from the WCC to the Big 12–but was tagged with some negative press regarding his inability to get a win in the NCAA Tournament. While the hire wasn’t met with optimism around the country, the Wildcats have had an excellent start to the season that sees them 10-2 with wins over Duke and Gonzaga on neutral sites making them two of the best wins in college basketball this season. Their losses have come to Clemson and Ohio State which are two teams they were favored to beat–so they have had some games slip to counter their ability to knock off better teams.
Florida will have a rest advantage going into this game having played their last game on December 29th, while Kentucky will be playing Brown on December 31st.
Currently Kentucky is 24th in the NET rankings which makes this a clear quadrant-1 game for the Gators, and one that is extremely unlikely to fall out of quad-1 range no matter what happens to the Wildcats the rest of the season.
Upon arriving in Lexington coach Mark Pope was tasked with building up essentially an entire roster from scratch, and everyone in his rotation has essentially come from the transfer portal. Here is a quick rundown of the roster and where everyone came from, and you’ll find there are some familiar names whether from prominent programs or players that the Gators themselves pursued in the transfer portal.
Amari Williams (Drexel)
Lamont Butler (San Diego State)
Otega Oweh (Oklahoma)
Jaxon Robinson (BYU)
Andrew Carr (Wake Forest)
Brandon Garrison (Oklahoma State)
Kerr Kriisa (West Virginia)
Kobe Brea (Dayton)
Bringing in this many new pieces when you don’t have a nucleus to build on is extremely challenging and we have seen coaches all around the country struggle with this–but not Mark Pope. Kentucky has hit the ground running and will be expected to finish near the top of the SEC and it’s going to make for a major challenge for the Gators in a difficult road environment.
It’s at this point you need to think about all you know about Kentucky basketball over the last decade…and throw that knowledge in the trash. In just about every way, the Mark Pope era at Kentucky is completely different from the previous regime. Kentucky was a program that was all about bringing in young players destined for the NBA–and this year’s team is all about veteran experience. Kentucky was a program that was all about toughness, and they lacked offensive execution that made them a tough watch at times–and this year’s team is one of the most fun offenses in the country.
This has been the biggest difference that Wildcat fans have had to adjust to, and so far–they’re loving it. Kentucky went from basketball that looked like 2005 to basketball that looks like 2025 with modern actions and philosophies that make them much more difficult to guard. Using Amari Williams and Andrew Carr (two centers) behind the three-point line the Wildcats will run all kinds of off-ball actions to look for cutters and guards curling off screens and it has amounted to them being 12th in the country in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric. They will shoot a lot of threes, but much of those shots come because of how defenses need to adjust to take away their split cuts away from the ball and that’s where they are really deadly. Florida has been experimenting recently with doing a lot more switching and it’s likely that this strategy was in preparation for an opponent like Kentucky so look for the Gators to try and slow down their offense that way.
While Kentucky has been lethal on the offensive end, things aren’t quite as good on the defensive side where they have been vulnerable. This is an old, experienced team and that brings along some defensive savvy but they aren’t particularly athletic or quick (another major departure from the previous regime) and because of that they aren’t very disruptive and they can be easy to play against. Florida won’t have to worry with Kentucky being aggressive trying to blow up actions as they instead play much more passively in trying to protect the paint and the Gators should be able to launch a lot of three-point looks.
A strength of the Kentucky team is that they spread around the scoring due to their offense that uses a lot of movement and ball movement and they currently have six players averaging 9.8 points per game or more.
Otega Oweh is leading the way at 16.2 points per game as a shooting guard that can get downhill curling off screens or in transition as he can sprint ahead to hunt clear lanes to the rim.
Lamont Butler is averaging 14.0 points per game, which almost seems secondary to the fact that he is known as one of the best defensive guards in the country. A powerfully built 6’2”, look for him to constantly try to get into the paint from hand off situations.
Jaxon Robinson, a smooth 6’7” wing, was with Mark Pope at BYU so he knows the system inside and out which allows him to sneak backdoor for easy points leading to 12.3 points per game.
Kobe Brea is one of the best shooters in the country at 51% from deep after last year at Dayton where he hit 50% of his threes. Over the last 18 months he is putting on a generational three-point shooting performance and keeping him from getting clean looks has to be Florida’s priority. He is averaging 11.8 points per game.
Andrew Carr, really more of a center, is playing a lot of power forward which is giving him some favorable matchups leading to him averaging 11.1 points per game. He’s a skilled post player as the Gators saw firsthand last year when he was with Wake Forest and scored 22 points in the win.
Amari Williams might be averaging just 9.8 points per game but he’s an extremely important piece of their offense playing at the top of the key and distributing to the guards and wings flying off cuts.
Kentucky is a team unlike anything the Gators have seen so far this season both in terms of talent as well as style of play. Currently the best team the Gators have played is North Carolina, a team that doesn’t have the same level of talent as the Wildcats and a team that relied a lot more on individual scoring. The Wildcats are not only loaded with talent and experience but they play a complimentary style that is difficult to prepare for and the Gators will certainly have their hands full.
On one hand, the Gators will have an advantage in that they have a lengthy break to prepare for this game which they’ll need in order to guard all of Kentucky’s actions.
Kentucky’s advantage will come in that they have played much more difficult opponents and in a much bigger setting than the Gators have seen this year so they could be more conditioned for SEC play–but we won’t know until these two teams tip off.
Also of note–this is the first year in a while that the Gators and Wildcats will only be playing once with no return trip, so this will be your only chance to see these two teams battle unless they see each other in the SEC Tournament.
Florida and Kentucky will tip off on January 4th at 11 AM ET (they are kicking off a full slate of SEC games with the league trying to stagger start times as much as possible) and it will be televised on ESPN.