No. 5 Florida at Kentucky

 
* When: Saturday, 4 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Rupp Arena / Lexington, Ky.
* Records: Florida (24-6, 15-2) / Kentucky (19-11, 10-7) 
* Series/Last meeting: Kentucky leads 111-43. The two teams met Feb. 14 in Gainesville, where the 14th-ranked Gators never trailed and defeated the No. 25 Wildcats 92-83, marking UF’s first home win in the series since 2018. The guard duo of Xaivian Lee and backup Urban Klavzar combined for 41 points and nine 3-pointers to pace five UF players in double-figure scoring.
* TV: ESPN Network (Karl Ravech, Jimmy Dykes and Dick Vitale)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
  (with Sean Kelley, Lee Humphrey and Steve Egan) 
* Ticket info

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Projected Starters

 

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Junior	14.8 pts / 7.7 reb
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Junior	11.3 pts / 11.8 reb
Thomas Haugh	F	6-9 / 215	Junior	17.1 pts / 6.0 reb
Xaivian Lee	G	6-4 / 185	Senior	11.7 pts / 3.7 reb / 4.1 ast
Boogie Fland	G	6-3 / 185	Sophomore	11.5 pts / 2.6 reb

Kentucky	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Andrija Jelavic	F	6-11 / 225	Sophomore	5.8 pts / 3.9 reb
Malachi Moreno	F	7-0 / 250	Freshman	8.3 pts / 6.6 reb
Otega Oweh	G	6-4 / 220	Senior	17.9 pts / 4.5 reb
Collin Chandler	G	6-5 / 205	Sophomore	10.2 pts / 2.9 reb
Denzel Aberdeen	G	6-5 / 195	Senior	12.8 pts / 2.5 reb / 3.5 ast

The Setup

No. 5 Florida and Kentucky wrap their regular-season schedules with a sold-out showdown on UK’s “Senior Day.” The Gators clinched the program’s eighth Southeastern Conference championship last week (as well the No. 1 seed in the league tournament in Nashville, Tennessee next week). They also have the second-most conference wins in program history and are out to enhance their postseason resume relative to the NCAA Tournament. … UF has won 10 straight, including five on the road, marking the longest such SEC streaks since 2014. The average victory margin during those 10 wins was 23.2 points, with back-to-back 34-point blowouts of No. 20 Arkansas and Mississippi State when the Gators averaged 109.5 points. UK is coming off a 96-85 loss at Texas A&M and is trying to avoid its second consecutive season with eight conference losses. If the Wildcats lose, they’ll play in Wednesday’s first round of the SEC Tournament, which would be a first time for UK since the league expanded in 2012. … Coach Todd Golden, whose 108-74 win over MSU Tuesday marked his 100th victory in four seasons on the Florida sideline, is 2-4 against Kentucky. UK coach Mark Pope is 1-1 against UF. 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	Kentucky
87.8	Scoring	81.4
.482	Field-goal percentage	.468
.309	3-point percentage	.349
71.5	Scoring defense	73.4
.407	Field-goal percentage defense	.421
.321	3-point percentage defense	.318
4th	KenPom.com overall ranking	26th
9th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	39th
4th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	33rd
24th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	136th
4th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	27th
4th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	5th

The Breakdown 

About the Gators: The back-to-back scoring barrages moved them into the KenPom top 10 in offensive efficiency for the first time since the season’s second week. It wasn’t just those two games, obviously, as the Florida offense has been red-hot for a month now, especially the last two weeks when they’ve combined to shoot 56.7% overall and 43.2% from the 3-point line. As for the latter, the Gators now rank 11th in the league in 3-point shooting at 33.3% in SEC play and have moved up to just under 31% overall for the season. … UF has three SEC games this season when it scored at least 100 points (Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi State, all at home), which is a first in program history. … Florida ranks first in the league in offense and defense, as well as in 2-point offense (59%) and defense (45.2%). The Gators are second in offensive rebounding (41.4), but first on the defensive end (25.8), and rank No. 1 in the nation in rebounding margin at plus-14.8. … Since the sloppy week late last month when they turned the ball over a combined 33 times in wins over South Carolina and at Ole Miss, the Gators have turned it over just 26 times over three games, with only five against Mississippi State. … Florida is expected to have forward Thomas Haugh back in the starting lineup after their leading scorer and SEC Player of the Year candidate missed the first game of his career Tuesday. He was held out for precautionary reasons. … Forward Alex Condon tossed in 12 of his 19 field-goal attempts on the way to 26 points, seven rebounds and three assists against the Bulldogs. Condon is averaging 22.0 points and shooting 57.7% from the floor over the last five games. … Rueben Chinyelu, with 11 points and 16 boards, tied the program record with his 18th double-double. His next dub-dub will move Chinyelu past Bob Smyth (1975-76) for the school single-season record. … Guard Xaivian Lee is shooting 56% from the floor over the last seven games, but 74% on 2-point shots versus 38.2 from 3. He’s also got 47 assists to 19 turnovers in that span. … Point guard Boogie Fland scored 10 points and hit a 3 in his fourth consecutive game. He went seven of his last 14 over those four. … Backup guard Urban Klavzar hit just one of his four attempts from the arc, but is still at 43.8 in league play. He bombed five 3s in the first meeting against UK. … Backup sophomore guard Isaiah Brown (9 points, 4 rebounds) had another solid game off the bench, but so did freshman CJ Ingram (career-high 8 points, with two huge 3s, plus 2 rebounds, 3 assists), who got his first high-pressure minutes in SEC play and delivered big-time. Did he earn minutes going forward? That’s to be determined, but this late in the season Golden probably won’t deviate from his favored eight-man rotation. … Backup center Micah Handlogten missed a double-double against Mississippi State by one rebound, finishing with 10 points, nine boards and three assists. 

About the Wildcats: The seat remains warm for Pope, the UK favorite son who is 43-26 overall and 20-15 in league play in his two seasons since coming from BYU. His ties to the program (Pope was a starter on Rick Pitino’s 1996 NCAA championship squad) will placate Big Blue Nation only so long, but beating the ’26 league champs on “Senior Day” would help. It also would keep the Wildcats from playing in the dreaded Wednesday first round of the SEC Tournament. … UK has dealth with injury issues most of the season. As such, the Wildcats don’t do much really well. They have defended decently for the better part of the league season (4th among SEC teams), have shot the 3 at 36% in league play and rebounded as the No. 4 SEC team on both ends. They’re near the bottom of the conference, however, in turnover percentage on both ends of the floor. … In the loss Saturday at A&M, the Wildcats allowed the Aggies to shoot 48% overall and make 13 of 28 from the 3-point line (46.4%). … Guard Otega Oweh was voted SEC Preseason Player of the Year. He remains in the running, but likely will not win it. He’s shooting 47.7% on the season, 34.3 from deep and is one of the league’s best at drawing fouls. Oweh has pretty much shut down in the first meeting, going 4-for-14 and scoring 14 points. He’ll join former Gator point guard Denzel Aberdeen (36.6% from 3) for the senior commemoration. Aberdeen scored 19 in his UF reunion, but went eight of 21 from the floor. … Guard Collin Chander is one of the best 3-point shooters in the country at 44% (including 47.2 in SEC play). He went just 1-for-4 in the A&M loss, so he may be due. Chandler buried five against the Gators in the last meeting. … Center Malachi Moreno, the lone 2025 McDonald’s All American on the team, is at 60% from the floor on the season. He had a double double of 11 points and 11 rebounds when the teams met last month. … Forward Andrija Jelavic has started the last 13 games in place of Mouhamed Dioubate (8.2 ppg, 5.5 rpg), the Alabama transfer, in the first unit. The two basically rotate minutes in the post alongside Moreno. Dioubate doesn’t shoot 3s (just 2-for-22), but is very active on offensive glass. Jelavic is at 30% from 3. 

 

Numbers of Note 

* 6 — Outright SEC championships of the eight the Gators have won in program history. They shared the 2000 title with Kentucky and LSU, as well as the ’01 title with Kentucky. 

* 23.6 — UF’s average margin of victory in the five road games during the current 10-game streak, with those wins coming at South Carolina (by 47), No. 25 Texas A&M (19), Georgia (20), Ole Miss (19) and Texas (13). 

* 36.7 — Florida’s 3-point shooting during the 10-game winning streak, based on going 78 of 211. The number jumps to 39.0 over the last seven games (60 of 154).

 

Bottom Line

It’ll be a tough ask against a Big Blue blood opponent craving for a signature win, but what an exclamation point a win could put on this excavated season that stood at 5-4 back in December, as well 9-5 the first week in January, with an 0-1 mark in SEC play.

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.