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The Kentucky basketball team suffered a tough loss on Wednesday night at home against Florida basketball. It was a tight game throughout and it had a thrilling overtime finish, and the Gators outlasted the Wildcats for a 94-91 win. Kentucky is now 15-5 overall and 5-3 in conference play. The SEC has been challenging for the Wildcats so far as the conference is very deep.
One of the most painful parts of this loss for Kentucky basketball is the fact that the Wildcats almost had it wrapped up in regulation. They were at the line with a chance to go up by four with about 15 seconds left, but Florida got the ball back down three. Kentucky didn't foul, and the Gators made them pay by hitting the game-tying three. John Calipari discussed the decision to not foul after the game.
“There was a little more time than we wanted, but everything we were doing was to make them shoot some two and the kid drove it in the lane and one of my guys just left his man and they threw it out,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said, according to a video posted to Twitter by KSR. “So if we were going to foul with that much time against a really good rebounding team, it's just dangerous. And I'd rather play it out and I thought they played it out pretty good. But yeah, that was… we talked about it. I said, ‘let's play this out.' Make sure they're not getting threes. I thought about calling a timeout before his second free throw. And then I'm like, I'll freeze the kid. Let him shoot it, he'll make it. So that's, that's basketball. Whatever decision you make, if it works, you're a genius, if it doesn't, should have done it the other way. But I mean, the thing is, so many categories we did we beat them in. And this was similar to the game down there (Kentucky @ Florida). Where you look at it and say, how did we win? And the same thing here we make a free throw, we're up four, it's ballgame. They come down and make that three. It goes to overtime and we had chances before that to get it even more. They deserve to win. They played it and it made plays and we missed plays. I'm proud of how the kids fought short handed. You know, they're a good team. Just like South Carolina, South Carolina is a good team. This league is good.”
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That was a tough decision to make, and it ended up hurting. Like John Calpari said, that's basketball. It's hard to know what the best thing to do is in those late game situations, and last night, the call probably should've been for Kentucky to foul. Hindsight is always 20/20.
Kentucky basketball will look to bounce back from that loss when they return to the court on Saturday night. The Wildcats have a huge matchup at home as #5 Tennessee comes to town for a top-10 clash. Life in the SEC this season is not easy.
