NASHVILLE — Alex Condon collected 22 points and 10 rebounds as No. 4 Florida recorded a wire-to-wire 71-63 win over Kentucky in a Southeastern Conference tournament quarterfinal game on Friday.
Xaivian Lee chipped in with 11 points, six assists and three steals for the top-seeded Gators (26-6), who outrebounded Kentucky 50-29 and held the ninth-seeded Wildcats to 35.6% shooting despite 18 fastbreak points.
Florida shot 15.0% from 3-point range and went from the 13:07 mark of the second half until 4:17 remained without a field goal. The Gators hit 10 free throws in that spell, however.
It was Florida’s third win over Kentucky in three tries this season.
The Gators will meet fourth-seeded and 22nd-ranked Vanderbilt in the semifinals on Saturday. The Commodores defeated fifth-seeded and 25th-ranked Tennessee 75-68 in the quarterfinals.
Kentucky (21-13) got within five in the final minute before Lee canned a 3-pointer. He then picked up a steal on the other end.
Former Gator Denzel Aberdeen led Kentucky with 17 points and three assists. But Kentucky’s leading scorer, Otega Oweh, had just 10 points on 5 of 18 shooting, while its best 3-point shooter, Collin Chandler, was just 1 of 3 from distance and fouled out with six points.
Kentucky’s Mouhamed Dioubate had 12 of his 14 points in the first half and also fouled out.
Florida led 37-28 as Kentucky looked reluctant to challenge the bigger Gators in the paint from the jump, which allowed Florida to extend its defense on the perimeter.
That helped Florida bolt out to a 16-6 lead, but Dioubate — who was 3 of 23 on 3-pointers coming in — canned two in a span of 44 seconds to help get Kentucky within two.
The Wildcats’ Jasper Johnson tied it with a lay-up with 9:40 left and then went scoreless until Aberdeen’s lay-up with 3:39 remaining cut Florida’s lead to 33-22.
–Chris Lee, Field Level Media
