Oscar Tshiebwe knows he will face a defensive challenge tonight against Florida. (Vicky Graff Photo)
Oscar Tshiebwe knows it won’t be easy when Kentucky hosts Florida on Saturday night.
“The big man (Colin Castelton) is good,” the Kentucky senior forward said Friday. “He can play (and) I have so much respect on him. I don’t fear him. He’s coming in my hometown, coming in my house. He’s gonna have to fight. I’m not just going to let him come in and do whatever he wants. We’re going to have to fight.”
The Gators, led by Castleton, have won three straight Southeastern Conference games and six of their last conference encounters. In its last outing, Florida (13-9, 6-3 SEC) stunned No. 2 Tennessee 67-54 Wednesday in Gainesville. Castleton led led the Gators with 20 points.
“It’s affirmation for us as a staff, right, that we’re doing what we need to do,” Florida coach Todd Golden said after the win over the Volunteers. “We’re keeping our guys on the same page, keeping them together.
“All of our processes, I feel really good about what we’re doing with our program and how we’re building. To beat a Rick Barnes-coached team that’s ranked No. 2 in the country, I think that says a lot about the direction of our team.”
Much like Florida, Kentucky (15-7, 6-3) has also been on a streak against league foes and has won its past five games against SEC teams, including a 75-66 win at Ole Miss Tuesday night.
While Castleton has been giving Florida the boost it has needed, Antonio Reeves has been carrying the scoring load for the Wildcats and tallied 27 points to lead all scorers at Ole Miss earlier this week. Reeves has been averaging 17.4 points and shooting 45 percent from behind the arc in the past five games. He made six threes in the win over the Rebels.
Kentucky coach John Calipari isn’t sure is Reeves will continue to come off the bench or be in the starting lineup.
“He’s gonna play the same minutes whether I start him or not, and part of this is you’re coaching to make sure you keep building everybody else up,” Calipari said. ““If I take a guy out of the lineup — like we need CJ (Fredrick) and Chris Livingtson is coming along just like we want him to. Why screw that up?
“It’s not hurt Antonio. Shoot he may have Sixth Man of the Year in the country the way he’s playing. But yeah I may start him, we could. But it would have to be something, some injury, something happened.”
Calipari also isn’t sure if Cason Wallace will return to the lineup after suffering a knee contusion in a loss to No. 9 Kansas last Saturday
“I don’t know,” Calipari said. “He went and got checked out. He banged knees and so it’s painful but there’s no structural [damage]. That’s all good, but we’ll see. If he doesn’t, it’s next man up. One guy’s misery is another guy’s opportunity.”
One Response
We won this game by the skin of our teeth. We can’t keep playing this way or we will be NIT (Not In Tournament) bound.