Mark Pope may finally run out of answers against the hottest team in the SEC

Mark Pope is a problem solver. That’s the reason he was the perfect John Calipari replacement. Hiring a new coach is much like finding a new partner after a long relationship; you look for everything you were missing. 

Coach Cal was an elite recruiter, and Pope has shown himself to be outclassed in that regard, but unlike Cal, Pope does more with less. That’s kept this year’s Kentucky team afloat despite taking on water since November. 

Pope has found answers for Kentucky’s backcourt with Jaland Lowe, has built a front-court rotation around Malachi Moreno with Jayden Quaintance out nearly all year, and most recently has managed to replace Kam Williams’ size and shooting on the wing and override his new lineup’s lack of rebounding. 

On Saturday in Gainesville, however, he might finally run out of answers against the defending national champions because Todd Golden’s Gators are destroying just about everything in their path, especially undersized teams like Kentucky. 

Florida’s oversized lineup is a nightmare matchup for Kentucky’s current starting five

Florida had everything last season, but the team’s real superpower wasn’t Walter Clayton Jr.’s ridiculous shot-making; it was the remarkable front-court depth and ability to maintain offensive spacing with two-big lineups. So, even with Clayton, Alijah Martin, and Will Richard in the NBA and Denzel Aberdeen at Kentucky, with Thomas Haugh, Alex Condon, and Rueben Chinyelu back, the Gators are right back in the national title conversation and atop the SEC standings, a half game up on the Cats. 

In fact, Golden has supersized even more than last year, playing 6-foot-9 Haugh at the three with Condon at 6-foot-11 and Chinyelu at 6-foot-10. With any two guards, Xaivian Lee and Boogie Fland in the starting lineup, or any variation. 

That three-man combo has posted a +21.2 net rating this season, and critically for this matchup on Saturday, a 43.7 percent offensive rebounding rating, which is 99th percentile in college basketball (according to CBBanaltyics.com). 

That’s how Florida has managed to score 19 percent of its points on second chance opportunities this year, and how a three-big lineup with a pedestrian 55.3 true shooting percentage and an abysmal 23.5 percentage from beyond the arc has a 118.7 offensive rating (84th percentile). That’s also the perfect way to beat this iteration of Kentucky. 

In last Saturday’s win over Tennessee, Kentucky was outrebounded 46-31 and allowed 12 second-chance points. Over the last five games, all without Williams, who was averaging 2.5 rebounds and added meaningful size on the wing, Kentucky’s defensive rebound rate has sunk from 71.1 percent for the year to 67 percent. Opponents haven’t completely punished them with just 10.2 second-chance points a game, but Florida almost certainly will. 

Moreno has been fantastic in his freshman season, but as Pope conceded in his Thursday press conference, he hasn’t faced a player like Chinyelu, who is averaging 11.8 rebounds per game. Andrija Jelavic has also not battled a player like Condon for an entire game, nor has 6-foot-5 Collin Chandler dealt with a player of Haugh’s size. 

It's not necessarily that Kentucky is undersized. Brandon Garrison played 15 minutes off the bench against Tennessee and Mouhamed Dioubate has been a key reserve for much of the season. But without Williams, Kentucky doesn't have great positional size and to build a lineup that can match Florida's, Pope would have to play at last three non-shooter on the offensive end.

Pope is one of college basketball’s best problem solvers, but you can only solve a problem if you have the right tools for the job, and Kentucky looks to be a few bigs short to bang with Florida’s supersized starting five.