Gator Basketball Falls to No. 10 Kentucky

The Florida Gators  men’s basketball team drops on the road to No. 10 Kentucky.

Keyontae Johnson and Kerry Blackshear Jr. went to work early for the Gators with 19 and 18 points respectively. Tre Mann was the Gator’s next leading scorer with 13.

Fought until the end. #GatorsHoop pic.twitter.com/xSeNhhFwoF

— Florida Gators Men’s Basketball (@GatorsMBK) February 23, 2020

Unfortunately, three people could not beat the entire Kentucky team and they fell 65-59.

How it Happened

Less than four minutes into the game, Scottie Lewis had to head to the bench with two early fouls. Two early turnovers from Florida gave Kentucky 4 points.

Blackshear led a 6-0 run by the Gators to tie it up at 8. With a little over seven minutes left, Kentucky led 21-18. Blackshear and Johnson combined for 16 of the Gators 18.

A three from Mann gives Florida its first lead at 23-21.

Despite being unranked, the Gators hung with No. 10 Kentucky and following a buzzer-beating three by Ques Glover the two teams were tied at 31 to go into halftime.

We're all tied up at half.#GatorsHoop pic.twitter.com/xaQhTf8ouR

— Florida Gators Men’s Basketball (@GatorsMBK) February 22, 2020

To start the second half, Blackshear and Johnson continued where they left off in the first. However, an 8-0 run by Kentucky put the Gators down by a point at 41-40.

The Gators responded though with two back to back buckets from Blackshear and Mann. However, back-to-back three’s from the Wildcats forces Florida to call timeout.

Florida gets caught in a 5-minute drought, so Kentucky leads 52-44 with just under nine minutes to play. Mann makes another three to make the score 52-49 and end the Florida scoring drought with just under seven minutes to play.

With two minutes to play, Johnson scores to make it 58-53 but a last-second three from Kentucky puts them back up to 61.

With just 15.9 seconds left, the Gators found themselves within two. However, after an Andrew Nembhard turnover, the last-minute comeback just was not enough.

Coming Up

The Gators will return home on Wednesday to take on the LSU Tigers. Wednesday’s game will be a late one with tipoff set for 9 p.m.