When you watch a game as crazy as last night’s Florida game, no doubt you take a ride on the most dangerous of emotional thrill rides. Personally, I felt like Dale Brown during the second half of the Mardi Gras Miracle, only my night had a happy ending.

Consider the circumstances surrounding the game.

* Kentucky, a team that has shot just a notch under 80% from the FT line all season long, went 9-16 from the line against Florida.

* Patrick Patterson had a poor shooting game (but not a poor overall game – I’ll elaborate later), then went out with a sprained ankle, which allowed Florida to make a late rally and expand to a six-point lead with less than three minutes to go.

* The Cats turned it over 19 times.

* Jodie Meeks did not have the shooting touch for much of the night.

* Nick Calathes put on a video game performance, scoring a career high 35 points and making approximately 19,625,396,071 shots.

* Kentucky failed to do the two things I thought were most critical to winning – making shots and defending the high screen.

And the good guys won? How’d that happen?

Well, to start, I have to give some credit to Billy Gillispie for making a couple of key adjustments down the stretch, especially once Patterson went out. I don’t think the guys ever defended the pick and roll in the ideal way. For comparison, I submit the defense in the second half against Auburn. Auburn had two plays against Kentucky – the high screen and isolation. In the first half of that game, there was too much switching on the high screen and that resulted in a plethora of Tiger threes. In the second half, the players fought through the high screen and denied the three in a halfcourt setting. That never happened last night. There was switching on every high screen, usually resulting in Perry Stevenson or Josh Harrellson on Calathes, which is the kind of mismatch that just makes me want to cry. I understand why they switched. They didn’t want Calathes to make one of those Jimmy Dykes “violent cuts” to the basket, but when there’s a slow post player on him, he doesn’t have to make a “violent cut.” He can just blow by his guy without much effort. However, as the Cats were making their comeback, Gillispie went with Stevenson in place of a tired Harrellson, then also went with DeAndre Liggins and Darius Miller in crunch time. The freshmen seemed to have more of a hop in their step, and those guys defended Florida very well, along with Kevin Galloway, the clear choice for game MVP.

Galloway deserves his own paragraph. He played point forward last night when Ramon Harris went out. I thought Gillispie stuck with Harris for a bit too long. We never should have seen that Harley Race high knee move in the lane. But to the coach’s credit, once Galloway came in, he never came back out. He probably has the most solid handle on the team, which was huge against the Florida press. The best thing he did all night was constantly attack. That’s the best thing he could have done against the Florida 2-3 zone. When a bad passing team goes up against a zone team, the best way to counter the zone is to attack, and that’s what Galloway did. He went right into the gaps and found open guys all game long. And while nobody did an exceptional job defending the pick and roll, Galloway was probably the best at it. The only question I have is why hasn’t this guy been getting the minutes? I’m sure Gillispie had some wordy coachspeak answer, but if I ever met him in a restaurant or something, I’d love to ask him.

Meeks has quietly turned into a fantastic clutch player. Clutch is more than making free throws at the end of the game, although that is very important. Don’t believe me? Ask Nick Calathes. Not only did Meeks make big shots down the stretch, but he also grabbed huge rebounds in traffic. With Patterson down and nobody else perceived as a serious threat to score, Meeks had to come up huge, and he did. That last shot was one of the more improbable shots you’ll ever see throughout UK lore. Calathes blocked the shot. He got a piece of it. It takes freakish strength and amazing presence of mind to withstand a guy getting a piece of the ball on the way up and still adjusting enough just to get the shot off, much less knock it down. And, according to ESPN’s Pat Forde, his left leg cramped up on that play, which makes the feat all the more impressive.

Side note: If you went to an Italian restaurant, and after you ate your meal, somebody came out and told you the meal came from Pizza Hut, would you ever go to that restaurant again? Furthermore, why would that restaurant even allow Pizza Hut to do free advertising at their expense? That’s arguably the worst business decision a restaurant could make. End side note.

Patterson was not playing poorly when he got hurt. He was shooting poorly – HUGE difference. He was still enough of a force to command triple teams and made Florida pack that zone in tight for as long as he was in there. He still gave great help defense and pulled down any rebound he could reach, just like he always does. The collective hearts of Big Blue Nation sank when he went down, but it looks like he’s going to be okay and that the injury pales in comparison to last year’s.

Jimmy Dykes uses catchphrases like Sam Jackson used F-Bombs. He sucks. Last night’s phrases of the night were “game face” and “non-scorers.” The “non-scorers” for Kentucky came up huge, all in different ways. Stevenson had a typical Stevenson game – some dunks, blocks, rebounds and brief moments of no upper body strength, but the positives outweighed the negatives. Miller hit the two biggest free throws of the night. That problem had gotten to the point where everybody was missing, and Miller came into a clutch situation and buried two shots – large cojones for a freshman. Mike Porter shot when the crowd told him to and knocked down a trifecta of threes. Harrellson gave the team some excellent minutes and scored at will. I’ve already made my case for Galloway. As for the “game face,” I’ll let Bob Knight tell you how I feel.

There’s a three-way tie for first in the SEC East between Kentucky, South Carolina and Florida. As it stands, the primary three-way tiebreaker statistic is record vs. division, and in that area, the good guys are on top. How sweet it is.

One final shout-out goes to Walt Hodge for losing his mind and stepping on Stevenson. And yes, it was intentional. There used to be a professional wrestler by the name of Ronnie Garvin, arguably one of the worst wrestlers ever. One of his signature moves was the “Garvin Stomp,” in which he measured and delivered precise stomps to his opponent’s limbs. This is what Hodge did. He measured the blow and delivered. It was the lone correct call Tony Greene made all night, and it took the Gators’ best clutch shooter out of the game. So thanks for that, Walt.

And thank you for reading.