By The Numbers: How Kentucky beat Florida again

As we await John Calipari’s comments at the postgame podium, let’s take a moment to highlight some of the numbers from Kentucky’s 82-74 win in Gainesville to sweep the regular season series with Florida. The most important number is the final score, but these digits helped get the Wildcats to the desirable outcome:

15: Chris Livingston had FIFTEEN rebounds to lead Kentucky on the glass, a career-high for the freshman. He and Jacob Toppin carried the rebounding load with 26 between them while Oscar Tshiebwe drew all of the attention and battled a minor case of the fumble-fingers.

25: He had a season-low four rebounds, but Oscar Tshiebwe‘s 25 points paced Kentucky in the scoring column in his second-best scoring outing in SEC play. Tshiebwe went 12 of 13 from the field.

19: Jacob Toppin scored 19 points, his 11th straight double-digit scoring game, and with 11 rebounds, his sixth double-double this season. Toppin’s last double-double came against Florida.

5 x 20: John Calipari played all five of his starters for the full 20 minutes in the second half, never subbing after halftime. For the game, the official box score credits Kentucky’s starting five with playing 189 of the 200 game minutes.

0-2: Florida guard Kyle Lofton went 3-for-3 from outside in the first Kentucky-Florida game in Lexington earlier this season. In the rematch, Kentucky prioritized limiting Lofton’s attempts and he finished with no made three-pointers on only two tries.

100: Cason Wallace was 100 percent at the foul line, a perfect 4-for-4 with the last two coming in the final seconds of a tight game. Now that he is the full-time point guard, Wallace’s free throw shooting is even more important in closing out games and he’s gotten better with time. In fact, he’s only missed two free throws in the last eight games.

91: Though it felt stressful at times and Florida had the lead at halftime, Kentucky only trailed for a total of one minute and 31 seconds in the entire game. 91 seconds playing from behind, while leading for over 37 minutes and by as many as 15 points.

15-0: Kentucky had 13 offensive rebounds for 15 second-chance points, most notably, Chris Livingston’s Play of the Game, the offensive rebound and putback plus a foul late in the game. On the other side, Florida scored zero second-chance points off only two offensive rebounds in the entire game.

53.2: The Wildcats shot 53.2 percent from the field. That’ll do.

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