Tre Mitchell didn't play well against Florida which proved just how valuable he is to Kentucky
Kentucky dropped to 5-3 in SEC play with a home loss to the Florida Gators.
This loss hurt Kentucky in all different sorts of ways, as they dropped in both KenPom and the NET Rankings. Luckily for Kentucky, the Tennessee Volunteers are coming to town on Saturday, which will give the Wildcats a chance to make this win up in a big way.
One Wildcat that had his worst game of the season was Tre Mitchell. Mitchell scored four points on 2-10 shooting. Now, Mitchell did do an excellent job of finding a way to get involved in other ways, grabbing nine boards and dishing three assists, but he couldn't get anything going on offense. In the second half, Mitchell was 0-4 from the field and had a +/- of -7. There is no reason to hit the panic button on Mitchell, as everyone has a bad game at some point. Mitchell has just been the definition of consistency, so seeing him not play well offensively was a bit shocking.
He is a player who has come up big for Kentucky in the clutch this season, so seeing him go 0-4 in the second half and 0-1 in overtime is one of the reasons Kentucky lost this game. This also goes to show just how valuable Mitchell is to this game. He didn't play well in the clutch, and Kentucky couldn't get the win.
John Calipari had to say this about some of the Wildcats having to play more minutes with DJ Wagner and Justin Edwards out plus the five-minute overtime period, "And, you know, we have got stuff to work on. You know, I haven't lost any faith in this team. I believe in the team. We just have to get healthy and have a full roster. In these wars like this, you are going to play a 45-minute game, 45 minutes, and some of the guys played 45 minutes. If Antonio didn't get in foul trouble, he would have probably played 42 minutes of the game."
