College Basketball Betting – Florida at (1) Kentucky
By Zack Garrison in News
Updated: January 17, 2018 at 9:40 am ESTPublished:
Florida Gators at (1) Kentucky Wildcats (-14.5, 122 o/u)
The No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats (30-0, 17-0 SEC) will look to finish their SEC regular season schedule undefeated today when they host the Florida Gators (15-15, 8-9 SEC) at Rupp Arena (2:00 p.m. Eastern).
The Wildcats had a scare last time out against the Georgia Bulldogs; but 17 points from freshman Karl-Anthony Towns and a few key plays from brothers Andrew and Aaron Harrison helped Kentucky overcome a nine-point second half deficit.
With the win, Kentucky became the fourth team in SEC history to win 30 straight games.
“You have kids here who have a will to win, they believe they’re going to win, and they made the plays they needed to make,” coach John Calipari said after the comeback.
The Gators, on the other hand, are having a season to forget. Florida came into the year ranked No. 7 in the nation. But they dropped their second game of the year to in-state rival Miami and have never been able to get on track.
The team lost four straight in early February, falling to just 5-7 in SEC play. The Gators have shown signs of life lately, winning three of their last five, including two straight, to improve to 8-9; but they still just have one road-win in SEC play (72-68 over South Carolina in early January) and are heading into the toughest stadium in which to win today.
Kentucky will come in confident, as well, having already downed the Gators 68-61 in Gainesville this season. (Though the Wildcats narrowly missed covering the spread as eight-point road favorites.)
That win continued Kentucky’s recent dominance over Florida, improving their record to 7-1 SU in the last eight head-to-head. The Wildcats haven’t been as successful against the number, though, especially at home, going just 2-4-1 ATS in the last seven versus Florida at Rupp Arena.
The Wildcats opened as 14.5-point favorites for tonight’s contest, while the over/under is at a low 122.
(Photo credit:Â Official U.S. Navy Page (flickr) [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/legalcode]. Photo has been cropped.)
Sports Writer
Zack is a tour guide whose favorite sports are football, baseball, and golf. He enjoys giving obnoxious commentary during games and hopes to some day write a book about sports. His favorite underdog victory was the Diamondbacks beating the Yankees in game 7 of the World Series.
