As a practical matter Florida didn’t need to win the SEC tournament championship.
The Gators had already been designated the top overall seed for the NCAA tournament before they faced Kentucky on Sunday. A loss would have done nothing to damage Florida’s status as a favorite to win the national championship.
But watching the Gators gleefully cut down the nets at the Georgia Dome after they escaped with a 61-60 victory, it was clear this meant something to them.
“We came into this tournament wanting to win it,” Florida guard Scottie Wilbekin said. “That was our goal and we accomplished that. Now it’s on to the next game.”
The Gators, placed in the South Region, will open the NCAA tournament Thursday in Orlando, not far from their Gainesville campus. They will face the winner of the play-in game between Albany and Mount St. Mary’s Tuesday in Dayton.
Florida (33-2) won its fourth SEC tournament championship and beat the Wildcats in the final for the second time in four meetings. The Gators swept through the SEC regular season 18-0 and then won three games to capture both league championships.
Kentucky nearly prevented it. The Wildcats trailed Florida by 16 points before rallying to within a point in the final minute, but guard James Young slipped and lost the ball while driving for a final shot and time ran out during the ensuing scramble.
“We didn’t want to lose,” Young said. “We kept fighting back.”
Kentucky (24-10) earned an at-large bid as the No. 8 seed in the NCAA tournament’s Midwest region. The Wildcats will play No. 9 seed Kansas State in St. Louis on Friday.
The Wildcats suffered its third loss against the Gators, who beat them twice during the regular season. Kentucky dropped three of four games to end the regular season and is the first team since Indiana in 1979-80 to drop out of the Associated Press poll after starting the season No. 1.
The Wildcats said their effort against Florida is worth something even if they never led and couldn’t finish.
“It’s definitely a big confidence booster considering the last (few) games of the regular season,” Kentucky center Willie Cauley-Stein said. “Coming in here, we were a brand new team. Building off that going into the NCAA tournament is going to be good for us.”
It appeared the Gators would pull away to an easy victory when they led 40-30 at halftime and ran out to a 46-30 lead after the break. They took the spirit out of the Kentucky fans who filled the Dome for the tournament as usual, but those supporters erupted when the Wildcats rallied with a 14-0 run.
After Cauley-Stein’s driving score got Kentucky back within 54-45, Dorian Finney-Smith stepped on the sideline for a Florida turnover. Kentucky guard Aaron Harrison followed with a 3-pointer, and then Cauley-Stein blocked Casey Prather’s shot to start a fast break that Harrison finished with a layup.
James Young followed with two free throws, Cauley-Stein made one and suddenly Kentucky was down just 54-53 with 6:16 still to play. Florida went ahead 61-57 on Patric Young’s banked hook shot with 1:57 left but James Young answered with a 3-pointer to close the deficit to 61-60.
Florida next three possessions resulted in a turnover and missed free throws by Wilbekin and Finney-Smith on the front end of the bonus. Kentucky called timeout with 14 seconds to set up the final play, which ended with Young losing the ball.
With that, the Gators headed to the NCAA tournament on a 26-game winning streak.
“We have the kind of confidence where we feel we can line up against anyone and, if we play the right way, there’s no one we can’t beat,” Florida’s Patric Young said.
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