LEXINGTON, Ky. – The post-game takeaway for visiting and fifth-ranked Florida was the uneven way the team finished off Saturday’s 84-77 victory over Kentucky at Rupp Arena. The Gators had a 20-point lead reduced to just five with 19 seconds remaining before a couple free throws by guard Xaivian Lee put the game away. 
 
“We didn’t make enough winning plays the last 10 minutes,” UF coach Todd Golden said. 
 
That may be true, but something from that above first paragraph bears repeating: The Gators had a 20-point lead at Rupp. When’s the last time that happened? 

Never.

 

Junior wing Thomas Haugh scored 17 of his team-high 20 points in the first half, when the Gators shot 64.3% to build a 17-point advantage at the break. They increased it to 20 with a little more than nine minutes to go before getting a bit out of sorts against the Wildcats’ defensive pressure. UK outscored UF 29-16 over those final nine-plus minutes, converting on nine of 15 field goals, but what the Gators (25-6, 16-2) — winners of 11 straight and 2026 champions of the Southeastern Conference — did over the game’s first 30-plus minutes determined the final outcome.

 

“It’s fun winning in there,” Lee said.

 

Rare, also. It marked just the 13^th road win for UF in the series’ 99-year history (compared to 56 losses), so, yeah, the visitors had a blast putting a cap on one of the program’s all-time best SEC runs. 

Florida will have the No. 1 seed and double-bye into the Friday quarterfinals of the conference tournament that tips off Wednesday in Nashville, Tennessee. The Gators also got a boost to their chances at a potential No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament, courtesy of a loss by fourth-ranked Connecticut at Marquette earlier in the day. 
 
Haugh, who missed the first game of his career in Tuesday’s home defeat of Mississippi State, finished 7-for-14 from the floor, plus three of six from the 3-point line, adding nine rebounds, three assists and three steals. UF had four other players in double-digit scoring: point guard Boogie Fland was good for 16 points and six assists; forward had Alex Condon 14 points, five rebounds and four assists; center Rueben Chinyelu had 13 points to go with eight boards; Lee doing his stat-stuffing thing with 11 points, seven rebounds and five assists. 
 
“The first half, we played about as well as you could hope coming into a place like this,” Golden said. 

In sweeping a regular-season series against Kentucky for the first time since 2018, the Gators never trailed. They scored the game’s first 11 points, but then had to navigate a couple scoring droughts (the first one four minutes, the second three) as the Wildcats (19-12, 10-8) closed to within a point, at 20-19, at around the nine-minute mark. 
 
From there, UF sped off on a 13-0 spree, with Haugh scoring seven of the points, and Fland finishing the spurt with a run-out slam off a steal that put the Gators in front 33-19. They went to the locker room up 49-32 after going 18 of 26 from the floor, six of 10 from the arc, and defending at 39.7%. 
 
“We obviously didn’t finish the way we need to, but that was definitely the start we needed,” Haugh said. “We’ve done that a couple times this year in the SEC. When we jump on teams like that, it’s hard to beat us.”
 
It was 68-48 after a couple Chinyelu free throws at the 9:43 mark. The lead was 14 with five minutes to go when the Wildcats went on a mini-run of 7-1 over 90 seconds that trimmed the margin to eight and got the attention of the 24,000 fans packed in the house.

“I didn’t think we played with any real pace or force late. It was like we were just trying to hang on, as opposed to continuing to extend the play,” Golden said. “They were getting more physical, they were selling out defensively and the refs were letting them play physically. We didn’t counter it by playing with enough intention and being on the attack. We always want to play to win, but we were playing not to lose and kind of waiting for the zeroes to get on the clock the last five or six minutes.”

 

They weren’t playing their smartest basketball, either. 

 

Twice in the final 30 seconds, the Gators fouled 3-point shooters. Kentucky guard Otega Oweh, who led all scorers with 28 points, hit all three of his and, after Fland knocked down two free throws, former UF guard Denzel Aberdeen (15 points, 5 rebounds, 4 assists) made two of his three with 19.2 seconds remaining to draw the Cats within five. 

 

Then against UK’s full-court pressure, UF turned the ball over on the ensuing inbound play, but Wildcats guard Collin Chandler turned it right back, with Lee snaring a bad pass and getting fouled in the backcourt. He made one of two free throws with 17.9 left and, after an Oweh air-ball 3-pointer fell into Lee’s hands, he again hit one of two with 10.9 remaining to ice an eighth straight SEC road triumph, marking the second-longest such string in team history.

“We got a little too complacent at the end,” Haugh said. “We had the big lead and thought it was going to be over.”
 
Instead, UF shot just 30.3% in the second half and surrendered 45 points. They also dumped UK into Wednesday’s round-of-shame opening day of the SEC Tournament. While the Wildcats (and half the league) canibalizing each other in Nashville, the UF coaches will have some some things to pick at while practicing in their home gym this week.
 
Those final 10 minutes will come up. 
 
“We have to be able to control that part. We have to get better at that,” Fland said of the team’s close-out effort. “But we came out with a W, so that’s what matters.”
 
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.