With the huge win over Tennessee the Gators finally have the marquee win they’ve been looking for to spotlight their resume but the work is far from over as on Saturday night they head to Rupp Arena to take on the Kentucky Wildcats.
After getting the signature win over the Volunteers the Gators (13-9, 6-3 SEC) are in a much better place from a resume standpoint than they were going into that game, but they are still very much on the bubble and that win likely wasn’t enough to put them into the NCAA Tournament picture. Florida will still need to stack up some quality wins and they’ll get that opportunity on Saturday at Rupp.
Florida won’t be the only desperate team on Saturday as the Wildcats are also desperate for quality wins. This Kentucky team (15-7, 6-3 SEC) has struggled and is firmly on the bubble themselves, so they’ll also be going into this game hungry for a win. It is very rare for the Gators and Wildcats to meet in a game where both teams are sitting outside of the NCAA Tournament field but that’s where we find ourselves and it should make for a spirited tilt on Saturday.
Right now Kentucky’s resume looks…well, it looks a lot like Florida’s resume. For much of the season the Wildcats struggled to get a marquee win, but they also avoided the bad loss–but ultimately there wasn’t enough meat on the bone for them to have a resume that looked clearly at-large level. In fairness to Kentucky they did schedule and beat Michigan and Louisville–two teams that they expected in the offseason would offer resume boosts, but both have ended up not being quality NET games.
Then, disaster struck. Kentucky lost to South Carolina at home, suffering what is one of the worst losses any team with NCAA Tournament aspirations has taken this year. Their resume that was once lacking quality wins but also lacking a bad loss suddenly had a massive black eye–and there was work to be done. The Wildcats were able to punch back, taking down Tennessee in a similar fashion to how the Gators did–by clamping down defensively and holding the Vols to only 56 points.
Currently Kentucky sits at 35th in the NET rankings while the Gators are just behind at 41. Both teams have a win over Tennessee, but Kentucky’s was just a little bit more valuable–they won in Knoxville. However, Kentucky has the albatross loss at home to South Carolina–a loss much worse than anything the Gators have suffered. For that reason it’s hard to know exactly what team is ahead of the other in resume but if you ask most reputable bracketologists both teams are currently still outside of the field so they are both going to be desperate for a win.
We’re used to seeing Kentucky teams that are loaded with size and athleticism–teams that are outstanding on defense, but usually aren’t great on the offensive end. Things are different than what you’d expect as they currently sit at 24th in the country in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric and 65th in adjusted defensive efficiency. While that’s a pretty significant spread, it doesn’t always match the eye test. Kentucky won the massive game at Tennessee with their defense, and when they’re at their best it still seems it’s due to their effort on that end. Offensively, Kentucky’s offense can look disorganized, choppy, and slow in the halfcourt–but they’ve still found a way to have quite a good efficiency.
This is largely because, as we’ve come to expect from Kentucky teams, they are excellent on the offensive glass. Currently ranked 5th in the nation in offensive rebound rate the Wildcats crash after every shot goes up and it gives them second, third, and fourth chances to score that makes up for some of the efficiency they lack on initial attempts.
Who is the engine behind that offensive rebound attack? You guessed it–Oscar Tshiebwe. In a pre-NIL era it would be extremely unlikely that college basketball’s player of the year would return but that’s just what the Wildcats have with Tshiebwe, a noted monster on the inside when it comes to scoring or rebounding. He’s currently averaging 17 points and 14 rebounds a game, just a slight hair down from the 17 points and 15 rebounds he averaged last season.
Colin Castleton and Oscar Tshiebwe had a couple of spirited one on one matchups when the Gators saw Kentucky last year and they’ll certainly have spotlights on them on Saturday. In the two matchups Tshiebwe had 27 and 27 points, while Castleton had 23 and 17. You see, the 6’9”, 260 pound Tshiebwe has always been at his best when going against taller, lankier centers like Castleton who has a lower center of gravity than, so offensively he likes the matchup a lot. Then you have 6’11” Colin Castleton, who is at his best against centers who aren’t as tall and long as him as he can shoot above or around those defenders. So, he likes the Tshiebwe matchup as well. We saw both of these players able to get loose against each other last season, and it’s something to watch out for again as these players would certainly like to best the other.
Another player to watch out for is Antonion Reeves who transferred to Kentucky from Illinois State. The 6’5” guard is known as a shooter and he was someone that Calipari targeted to try and provide some spacing around his 5-star athletes who would largely be operating in the paint. Reeves took some time to come into his own to start the season but he’s playing his best basketball right now and just had 27 points against Ole Miss where he shot 6-7 from behind the arc. Kentucky will run a lot of actions for Reeves to run off screens in an attempt to get him a clean look from three or get him catching going downhill and it’s something the Gators will be working on in practice to make sure they know how they want to guard it.
Generally speaking we are used to Kentucky-Florida matchups being massive events with one or both teams being ranked, having aspirations of finishing at the top of the league. This year’s iteration of the matchup is entirely different, but in a lot of ways it makes this game a lot more important than in recent years. Both teams are going to be hungry and it should make for an outstanding game.
This game takes place February 4th at 8:30 PM ET and will be televised on ESPN.