Kentucky shows championship-level resolve, will to win in road test at Florida

Aaron Bradshaw couldn’t have drawn up a worse start if he tried. The 7-1 freshman had a goose egg in the scoring column with just one rebound in ten minutes at the half. It’s harsh to say he was unplayable, but in a battle against a tough and physical Florida team that entered the game ranked No. 1 nationally in rebounding, he just wasn’t giving Kentucky what it needed to compete in Gainesville.

That trend continued to open the second half, just one additional rebound through 11 minutes of game action, still zero points. It was a scoreless 0-4 start with just two boards in 31 minutes. How easy would it have been for John Calipari to yank him and tell him to try again next week? Armchair coaches at home certainly would’ve made that call.

Bradshaw hits the shot of the game

Then Bradshaw went for 10 points on 3-3 shooting with five rebounds down the stretch, highlighted by the go-ahead 3-pointer with 1:27 to go, giving Kentucky its first lead since the opening minutes of the second half. He had a clutch block to get the ball back on the other end right before it, then hit a free throw with 35 seconds to go to put the Cats up five.

“It was amazing, a game-winning play,” DJ Wagner said of Bradshaw’s clutch three. “That’s the great player in him. He works very hard, puts in a lot of work, and it showed today. Once he let that thing go, we were all confident. We all thought it was going in.”

That takes stones, and he certainly wasn’t the only one.

Kentucky throws dagger after dagger

How about Reed Sheppard? The freshman guard missed the front end of a one-and-one to make it a one-score game with 8:43 to go — his second miss of the day as a 90% free-throw shooter. Then in the final 20 seconds? Six consecutive makes to ice the win. And he blocked the three on Florida’s final shot attempt, incorrectly called a foul. Need to leave that one alone next time, but hey, stones. You won’t hear me gripe about his 14-point, five-rebound, two-assist, one-turnover effort in his first SEC road game.

It was the pair of vets who kept Kentucky in it from the jump, Antonio Reeves leading the way with 19 points on 8-16 shooting and 2-7 from three, Tre Mitchell adding a double-double of his own at 12 points and 10 boards — limping across the finish line down the stretch, both legs cramping up. The Wildcats needed an answer on the glass, and through the pain, the fifth-year senior came through.

DJ Wagner was a stable force, too, slithering through the line for crafty finishes and clutch buckets at times Kentucky couldn’t buy one. He managed to score eight points in the first eight minutes of the second half, including a dagger 3-pointer to give the team its first lead since it was 10-8 just five minutes into the game. Then with the deficit back up to seven at the 12-minute mark, he responded with a quick and-one to cut it back to four, allowing the Cats to take a deep breath in a two-score game going into the media timeout. Trading buckets down the stretch, Wagner then tied it up at 74-74 with 3:50 to go. Anybody’s game with one segment to go, just the way you want it after trailing by as many as 11 in the first half.

When push came to shove, it was Kentucky’s dudes throwing the daggers and making the plays

Cats unleash inner dog

“Well, we have dogs. What I talked about to these guys is if you want to be a championship-level team, you’ve got to go on the road and play against somebody’s best, hang around, then win the game,” John Calipari said after the win. “Everything is working against you because they’re gonna play as well as they can play. It’s what it is. They showed it today.”

The Wildcats weren’t perfect defensively, obviously. Florida cleared its game average for made 3-pointers in the first half with eight, but Kentucky responded by forcing tough shots late, the Gators going just 1-11 after the break. Some head-scratching fouls and unnecessary turnovers kept it close, but the road underdog managed to scrape together response after response after response. For every haymaker the home team landed, a counter was thrown right back. There were dozens of ways to lose this game, opportunities to let go of the rope. Never flinched.

Kentucky’s lone regular season losses in 2009-10 were in true road games at South Carolina and Tennessee. The 2010-11 team lost six SEC road games before making a run to the Final Four. The Cats snuck by Tennessee in Knoxville 65-62 and Vanderbilt in Nashville 69-63 ahead of the title run in 2011-12. UK went to double-overtime in its first SEC road game at Texas A&M during the 2014-15 season. Two losses at Tennessee and Florida in 2016-17. 2018-19? 77-75 loss at Alabama to open conference play.

Last man standing in Gainesville

John Calipari’s best teams in Lexington have been battle tested in SEC road environments and come out better for it on the other side. This team’s first test? A nail-biting, gut-wrenching, heart-pounding boxing match going the distance, Kentucky throwing the final punch in round ten for the knockout. And it was an all-in effort with credit equally distributed across the roster and coaching staff. Without Reeves or Mitchell, this game is lost. Without Bradshaw or Wagner, this game is lost. Sheppard, Justin Edwards or even Ugonna Onyenso and Rob Dillingham? You guessed it.

No one was perfect and some played better than others, but everyone contributed.

“They played as well as they could play,” Calipari said of Florida. “That’s when you know, if you win that kind of game, we’ve got a chance.”