NASHVILLE -- Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan surveyed the stats following his team's 64-49 loss to nationally top-ranked Kentucky in Friday's SEC tournament quarterfinals. He saw that his team had outshot the Wildcats from the field, 39.3 percent to 37.5 percent. He saw the Gators were out-rebounded by only 39-33. The Gators had more assists (12 to 7) and only one fewer made 3-pointer, three to two.
"I think statistically, if you look at the game, everything was pretty even," Donovan began. "They out-rebounded us a little bit, but the difference in the game was the free-throw line. Twenty-three attempts to our five was a huge factor."
Indeed, on an afternoon when Florida recorded one more field goal than UK, handed out five more assists and blocked only two fewer shots, the Big Blue's 19 made foul shots to three made free throws for the Gators were all the Cats needed to improve to 32-0 for the season. That tied the longest win streak in school history, though the previous streak covered two seasons (1953-54 and 1954-55).
"I don't think that Kentucky going to the free-throw line 23 times was unwarranted," Donovan said. "I think we probably did foul them. But I know we should have been to the free-throw line more than five times."
For the first time since 1997-98, Florida will finish with a losing record (16-17), its defense of last year's SEC tourney title now done.
Thanks to Auburn's 73-70 overtime upset of LSU, Kentucky will face an AU team playing its fourth game in four days in today's 1 p.m. EDT semifinal.
"The reality is, we didn't play with as much energy as Florida played with to start the game," winning coach John Calipari said after watching his team fall behind 10-5 and 12-7 in the early going before leading 31-27 at halftime.
"I told them at halftime, 'If that's what we have in store, like that's how we're going to do this, we're going to have some problems.'"
But those problems subsided not long after halftime, when a blocked shot by UK's Dakari Johnson led to a 3-pointer from Aaron Harrison to put Cal's Cats on top 42-31 with 14:08 to go. Florida clawed back to within 50-45 with 7:40 to go, but three minutes later Kentucky was ahead 62-47.
Aaron Harrison and Karl-Anthony Towns led the Cats in scoring with 13 points each, and Towns hauled in a game-high 12 rebounds.
"Obviously, it's tough sometimes to score over guys who have such great length," said Jon Horford, who led the Gators in scoring with 14 points. "At times we did it well and at times we didn't."
Added Florida's Eli Carter, who backed Horford with 11: "Tonight we didn't play a 40-minute game. In order to beat them, you've got to play a full 40-minute game."
Especially on a day when the Wildcats shoot 18 more free throws.
Contact Mark Wiedmer at mwiedmer@timesfreepress.com.