The Florida Gators finished out the 2009-2010 men’s basketball regular season on Sunday afternoon with a 66-74 loss to the No. 3 Kentucky Wildcats. No one was giving the Gators a chance to win that game in Lexington, but it still sucks to see our team close off the season with three straight losses. That is definitely not going to sit well in the minds of the NCAA Tourney voters. The Gators will now travel to Nashville on March 11 for the SEC Tournament. They’ll have to win a game or two here to ensure a trip to the NCAA Tournament.

The Gators got down big in the first half – trailing by as much as 18 points. But they were able to bring the deficit down to 10 points at halftime and made a great comeback in the second half. With about 4-5 minutes left in the game, the Gators were down only 2 points… but they were never able to take the lead. By the closing minutes the Gators got desperate and Kentucky pulled away.

Alex Tyus led the team in scoring with 12 points, followed by Kenny Boynton who had 11. Can you believe our leading rebounder was not someone by the name of Macklin, Tyus or Chandler? But by someone who is like 5′8″ – Erving Walker, who had 8 boards.

The Gators are slated to take on Auburn at 7:30 p.m. (ET) in the first round of the SEC Tournament and the game will be broadcast on the SEC Network. We have a lot of work to do if the Gators want to advance in the SEC Tournament. It won’t come easy – even against Auburn.