Notable
* Riley Kugel led the Gators with 24 points, his first career 20-point game, reaching double figures for the fifth straight game. Kugel is averaging 17.2 points over the last five games.
* It marked the most points by a Florida freshman since Noah Locke had 27 vs. Texas A&M (1/22/19).
* Kugel is the fourth different Gator with a 20-point game this season, joining Colin Castleton (8), Trey Bonham (3) and Kowacie Reeves (1).
* It marks the second straight season a freshman has had a 20-point game for the Gators (Kowacie Reeves – 21 vs. Texas A&M, 3/10/22).
* Kowacie Reeves added 16 points off the bench for the Gators, shooting an efficient 6-for-9 from the floor with a pair of 3-pointers.
* After falling behind 30-15, the Gators rolled off a 13-0 run and outscored UK 22-6 over the final 7:30 of the first half to take a 37-36 lead into the break, finishing the half with a 9-0 stretch.
Head Coach Todd Golden
On the effort the team gave…
“Yeah, I thought we battled, I really did. I kind of challenged our team today about just needing everybody if we were going to find a way to win this game, all 14 guys that we have available to us. I also talked about how Kentucky doesn’t play their bench a lot, so our 14 against their five, let’s see what we got. Obviously not a great start, but credit to our guys, I thought they stayed the course, they kept fighting. We obviously took a one-point lead at halftime, pretty resilient effort that way. I think we outscored them 22-to-6 to end the half, to take that lead. And then again, early in the second half, we weren’t able to stop them around the rim but clawed all the way back, got them to miss down two on a tough step-back three and just couldn’t get the rebound with 1:20 to go or 1:40, can’t remember exactly. I’m proud of the effort. I thought offensively our guys stepped up. I was proud of the way we took advantage of the switching. They switched with Shimmy [Aleks Szymczyk]. I guess they were concerned with how he shot the ball on Saturday, and we did a great job driving those switches. We shot 50 [percent] from the field, 40 from three, 70 from the line, pretty dang good without Colin [Castleton], so I was proud of that. Our first-shot defense was all right, not good, not great, but all right – enough to keep ourselves in the game. But as I do a quick breakdown of the box score I look at the rebounds as obviously the reason why we lost, 13 offensive rebounds for them. I think they were 7-for-8 on second chances, we only got two. Everything else we’re right there if not a little bit better than them, whether it’s turnovers or field goal percentage and threes made. So [I] thought overall, no moral victories is right, but our effort was pretty good.”
On the situation about rebounding..
“Yeah, it’s been an emphasis, we talk about it a lot, obviously we lost one of the best rebounders in the country and so as we are reinventing ourselves, we need guys to step up and be a little more aggressive and a little more physical on the glass. Obviously, they are one of the best offensive rebounding teams in the country. Tshiebwe is one of, if not the best rebounder in the country so this was a challenge for us. And as we get into our remaining three games we need to do a better job that way. But yeah, an area we have talked about and we weren’t good enough there tonight.”
Freshman G Riley Kugel
On Kentucky’s early runs…
“They went on a good little run in the first half, but we knew that wasn’t really nothing. We just had to come back out and execute our defensive principles, offensive principles, and we knew we could fight back and one run would get us back in the game.”
On the team’s mentality…
“I feel like everybody on the roster is ready to go and ready to give their all, all the time. Everybody’s mindset is always to get it done, and whatever that person on our roster needs to do, I feel like they’ll get it done.”
Sophomore G Kowacie Reeves
On Kentucky’s rebounding and physicality…
“It’s kind of their identity, we knew going into the game that that’s the way they could hurt us, with how efficient they are with their offensive rebounding. That was out biggest mistake in this game. We had guys that fought, everybody that got to play, all guys came in and fought, and gave it their all. Against a team like that, sometimes you just tip your hat, because we were in their boxing out, and doubling, boxing out Oscar (Tshiebwe) and trying to get it, but sometimes teams are just that good at offensive rebounding.”
On building confidence to beat good teams….
“We’ve proven that we can go toe to toe with these teams so it was no surprise to us when we came back in the game. With Tennessee, and stuff like that, we’ve proven in the past that we can go to toe to toe with these teams so everybody believed that we could win that game.”
