Koby Brea scored 23 points and hit seven 3-pointers off the bench to lead No. 10 Kentucky over No. 6 Florida 106-100 on Saturday in Lexington, Kentucky, handing the Gators their first loss of the season.
The Gators (13-1, 0-1 SEC) had cut an 80-69 Kentucky lead to 89-87 on Walter Clayton Jr.’s free throws with 4:40 remaining, but Lamont Butler hit a 3 as the shot clock wound down and added two free throws to help the Wildcats (12-2, 1-0) hang on.
“If you guys didn’t have fun tonight, you should quit right now and find a new job,” Kentucky coach Mark Pope said. “That was just an elite level physicality, bloodbath, competitive, just incredible performance after incredible performance going down the line, a great game and it’s just like, how fun is this SEC league going to be? I mean … it’s incredible.”
Clayton scored 33 points, 12 of those in Florida’s 18-9 run before Butler’s 3 with 3:42 left. Alijah Martin scored 20 of his 26 points in the second half to rally Florida after Kentucky took a 52-42 halftime lead.
Butler finished with 19 points and eight assists as Kentucky placed six players in double digits.
Brea played 22 minutes and shot 8-of-11 overall, hitting 7 of 9 from 3.
“He was magical tonight, wasn’t he?” Pope said of Brea. “And I don’t know, you’re hard-pressed to make a real cogent argument that he’s not the best shooter in the country. He just — it’s ridiculous.”
The Gators used offensive rebounding to take an early lead and then battled their way back in the second half, thanks in part to 15 offensive boards that led to 31 second-chance points.
In the first 10 minutes, Kentucky was outrebounded 12-2 and trailed 20-11. Over the rest of the first half, Kentucky held a 16-9 rebounding edge and a 10-point halftime lead.
Florida cut the Kentucky lead to 70-69 at the 12:05 mark of the second half when coach Todd Golden took a 30-second timeout. However, the Wildcats scored the next 10 points.
The Gators, who had held their previous four opponents to 20% shooting on 3-pointers, giving up about five 3s per game, allowed the Wildcats to shoot 48.3% from the arc with 14 made 3s.
Both teams return to action Tuesday night. Florida hosts top-ranked Tennessee while Kentucky goes on the road to Georgia.
Information from The Associated Press was used in this report.
