Florida Basketball: 3 keys for Gators to defeat No. 7 Kentucky

2. Guard Play

While kind of similar to the previous key with Fleming, this is a bit of a bigger key to win for the Gators. If Florida Basketball wants to win, the guard play overall on both ends of the court has to be better than the previous matchup in Lexington.

Kentucky as a team when fully healthy has one of the best groups of guards in the entire country, each of which had big games against the Gators previously with Grady, Mintz, and Washington all in double-figures, as well as Wheeler adding nine.

While you can likely not completely shut down a group as talented as this (aka Grady in particular is going to make some big shots at some point in this game), Florida’s guards are good defenders, and will have to defend well to limit Kentucky’s guards from getting hot and taking over. As you’d expect as well, offensive production will also be key for the Gators’ guards.

Looking back at Florida’s upset over Auburn at home two weeks ago, the Gators received their usual 15-20 points from star forward Colin Castleton, but also received a season-high 26 points from guard Tyree Appleby who made some big shots late. Appleby has since continued to be an impact scorer for the Gators since that game as well, averaging 19.5 PPG across his last four games.

The Gators big five guards of Appleby, Fleming, Jones, McKissic, and Reeves accounted for a combined 25 points on 10-for-24 shooting from two, as well as 2-for-11 from three against the Wildcats back in early-February. That group of five in particular will not only have to play strong defense against Kentucky’s talented backcourt, but will have to make some big shots as well, likely late in the game.