Orange Out! Free T-Shirts! Florida is ready to host Kentucky

It’s that time of year for Kentucky Basketball when opposing arenas throughout the Southeastern Conference pull out their best promos and free merchandise for when the Wildcats come to town. John Calipari often jokes about free t-shirt night, free towel night, and free cup night around the conference. This Saturday, he and Kentucky will see their first t-shirt game of 2024 because Florida is promoting an Orange Out for its home game against UK.

The SEC opener begins at 12:30 p.m. in Gainesville, and everyone in the O’Dome will receive a free orange t-shirt to help the cause. The Gators will wear their orange uniforms, too.

You get a shirt, you get a shirt, everyone gets a shirt!

🔸Everyone in the O'Dome Saturday for the Kentucky game gets an orange t-shirt for the 𝗢𝗥𝗔𝗡𝗚𝗘 𝗢𝗨𝗧! #GoGators pic.twitter.com/zqg7dgO08F

— Florida Gators Men’s Basketball (@GatorsMBK) January 3, 2024

For fans interested in attending, good luck. Lower-level resales are limited and some are north of $1,000 each. You can see what’s available on Ticketmaster here. The game officially sold out the morning after Christmas.

Calipari: The SEC is like “hand-to-hand combat”

After Kentucky beat Illinois State last Friday, John Calipari looked ahead to Florida in his postgame press conference, saying, “It’s going to be a hard game down there. It’s always a hard game. Sold out already. Sold out weeks ago. They’re good. They’ve got size. The big kid’s good. Guard play is good. Florida’s good.”

In a Saturday conversation with Tom Leach, Calipari hadn’t yet watched much Florida film, but he noted the significance of the start of league play. Teams are much less forgiving, weaknesses are exposed, and everybody fights, as Calipari put it.

“We’re now into the SEC play where everybody–it’s like a hand-to-hand combat. It’s a rock fight. They’re not going to give you as many breakouts. They’re going to try to offensive rebound. They are going to do all that kind of stuff. You have to be disciplined defensively. You can’t do what we did (against Illinois State) and ‘I’m just gonna do what I want to do.’ You can’t you can’t do it.”

So, the young Kentucky Wildcats will need to be prepared for their first big SEC fight, and lots of orange in the crowd. Way too much orange, probably.