Oscar Tshiebwe drops 25 as Kentucky sweats out 82-74 win over Florida

This year’s Wildcats sure don’t make life easy on the Big Blue Nation, do they?

On Wednesday night in Gainesville, Kentucky (19-9; 10-5 SEC) snuck out a closer-than-expected 82-74 victory over Florida (14-14; 7-8 SEC), fending off the Gators’ many comeback attempts. Despite UK leading by as many as 15 points in the first half, Florida held a slight lead at the intermission. But the ‘Cats, powered by 25 points from Oscar Tshiebwe, found a way to tough out the win down the stretch.

Tshiebwe added four rebounds and three assists to his stat line on 12-13 shooting, surpassing the 1,000-point mark during his Kentucky career in the process. He was aided by 19 points and 11 rebounds from Jacob Toppin while Chris Livingston posted his second straight double-double with 10 points and 15 boards. Antonio Reeves chipped in 16 points and four assists, as well. All five of UK’s starters played the entirety of the second half.

Florida was without leading scorer Colin Castleton, who recently suffered a broken hand, but the Gators received 24 points from freshman Riley Kugel and still shot 50 percent as a team from the field.

Kentucky came out of the gate firing on all cylinders. Before the first media timeout could hit, the ‘Cats held a 10-4 lead and continued to balloon it from there. The advantage reached double-digits after eight minutes ran off the clock and went as high as 15 points a little over midway through the opening half.

With a 30-15 lead in hand and Tshiebwe starting 5-5 with 11 points, Kentucky was in full control despite taking a majority of its shots from just inside the three-point arc.

But Florida finally woke up. A 13-0, three-minute run from the Gators made it a two-point game with under five minutes left until the halftime break. Kentucky responded with four quick points, but another 9-0 run from Florida gave the home team the lead, 37-36, at the intermission. Tshiebwe had 15 points after 20 minutes, but Kugel had 14 of his own for UF.

The second half started off with both sides trading baskets. Kentucky eventually managed to extend its lead out to six-plus points multiple times, but Florida continued to find ways to tie the score right back up. With nine minutes to go, the Gators tied the game at 59-59 thanks to a 6-0 stretch.

Kentucky once again went on another mini-run, taking a 72-63 lead with four minutes left in regulation following Toppin’s second made triple of the night. Toppin wasn’t done there though, throwing down a fastbreak alley-oop from Reeves on the next possession to put UK in front double digits. But Florida refused to go away, rattling off a 9-0 run to make it 74-72 with less than 90 seconds left.

Livingston came through to save the day though, converting on an and-one that gave the ‘Cats a 77-72 lead. Toppin hit a handful of free throws in the closing possessions to polish off the tight win for Kentucky. UK shot 53 percent from the field and outrebounded the Gators 40-21.