Kentucky scores wire-to-wire blowout of Florida, extends home winning streak
“I thought there were, again, six or eight ball screens that we set for our point guards in the first half that Tyler didn’t even allow us to get to the screen, didn’t even allow us to get that rub which would lead to the next action”, White said. United Kingdom is 12-0 this season at Rupp Arena and is on a 32-game home winning streak. In what’s been a relatively down year for Kentucky basketball (17-6), Murray’s been a consistent piece for the Wildcats offense all season. The Wildcats struggled to stay out of foul trouble in both defeats and were unable to find nearly any production from their roster outside of Tyler Ulis, Jamal Murray, Isaiah Briscoe and Alex Poythress. The Wildcats jumped to a 10-2 lead, forcing a Gators timeout less than two minutes into the game. Murray had a career-high game with 35 points, shooting 13-21 from the field, 8-10 from three point land and 1-2 from the free-throw line. “I haven’t seen my family in a while, haven’t seen my brother in a while, so it was good to have them in the crowd and have them watching”.
It was evident Murray was in for a big outing after he hit three shots from long range in the first four minutes and scored 11 of the first 18 points.
Kentucky has spent the past three days “soul searching” following an 84-77 loss at Tennessee earlier this week and has tried to put the disappointing loss behind them.
The Wildcats improved to 17-6 overall and 7-3 in the SEC, while a Florida team that has been playing great basketball of late fell toward the NCAA Tournament bubble at 15-8 and 6-4. I know they’re going to come out with fire. I know they just lost two straight … Dorian Finney-Smith continued his tear for Florida, posting his fourth 20-plus-point effort in his last five games (22 points) and pulled down nine rebounds.
“Not that we would have won the game by any stretch, but it’s just discouraging that we weren’t competitive, because we’ve at times this year, really until last week, our defensive numbers were really good”, White said. His 35 points also tie Julius Randle for the most points scored by a player in the John Calipari era.
The onslaught continued at the start of the second half, with the Wildcats jumping out to an 8-0 run.
“To be honest, I was a little surprised”, White said of Kentucky’s physicality, led largely by Humphries. The injury was not to the knee Poythress had surgically repaired last season. To do this against this team – this team beat West Virginia by 20 and had won five of six games.
“We’ve been a lot more aggressive offensively, getting each other good looks and not really being selfish and taking wild shots”, Leon said. I did that tonight and shot a high percentage.
UF is now 2-6 in road contests this season, with seven of its eight losses coming against teams in the top 100 nationally in RPI. Murray and his teammates will host the Georgia Bulldogs on Tuesday night.