ATLANTA — Even the hush of two potentially damaging ankle injuries couldn’t quiet the growing feeling of confidence within the Kentucky men’s basketball team, not after the Cats thrashed Alabama 72-58 Friday in the Southeastern Conference Tournament semifinals.UK played one of its best games of the year in a beating that was much wider than the final score indicated. Kentucky led by as many as 26 points against the same team that it trailed by 20 and lost to in Tuscaloosa, Ala., two months ago.Riding a five-game winning streak, UK (24-8) is playing its best basketball of the year.”That’s what I’m looking for from my team,” head coach John Calipari said. “We had a lot of guys performing, so it was a good game. We really guarded. Offensively we were really good.”The first five possessions were telling of how much Kentucky has improved since struggling against a defensive-minded Alabama team in the first meeting. On the very first play of the game, UK dumped the ball down to senior forward Josh Harrellson and he got fouled. The next play, Harrellson leaked back door, wide open, for an easy layup.Darius Miller missed a jumper on the next possession, but Harrellson hit Doron Lamb on the next series on an off-the-ball screen for a 3-pointer. On the fifth possession, Brandon Knight missed a 3, but UK crashed the boards for an offensive rebound and Lamb hit another shot.That was nine points in five possessions. All five plays were perfectly executed.UK stretched its lead early behind Lamb’s quick start — he scored 10 of the Cats’ first 14 points – and Kentucky never looked back. The Cats shot 50 percent from the floor, committed just seven turnovers and held Alabama to 41.5 percent shooting.”We’d have smacked anybody the way we played,” Calipari said.Kentucky led by as many as 26 and five players scored in double figures. Lamb led the way with 15 points, but Harrellson collected his sixth double-double of the season and DeAndre Liggins had 14 points and nine rebounds.”Great team win,” Terrence Jones said. “We really came out playing aggressive. Everybody was knocking down open shots. Hopefully I’ll join them one of these days.”Jones’ ineffectiveness is actually what’s most encouraging about UK’s current SEC Tournament run. The freshman forward scored just seven points on 2-of-9 shooting, missing several looks around the basket. Freshman guard Brandon Knight wasn’t much better. He finished with 12 points, but 10 of them came in a sizzling two-minute stretch.The fact that Jones and Knight could go a combined 0 for 9 from the floor before halftime and still lead by 16 “means we’re a good team,” Liggins said.How good, we may not know until the NCAA Tournament, but UK’s ability to succeed without its leading duo producing says a lot about how far the team has come in the last few weeks.”We’re going to be a dangerous team going into the postseason,” Liggins said.Before Liggins and Doron Lamb went down with ankle injuries late in the game, it was a full-game, on-court celebration for the Cats. Rupp Arena South, er, the Georgia Dome rocked with 21,728 fans, most of who watched blissfully as Kentucky’s youth finally met its potential. “A lot of guys are stepping up and really taking a hold of their roles and just really buying into the team and team effort,” Knight said.The ability for a team to mesh doesn’t happen in December, and for some, it never materializes. But for Kentucky to finally fit the puzzle pieces together just before the NCAA Tournament means this team either knew what it was doing all along or it just got really darn lucky.”If you’ve been together for a while already it can happen like that, but with a new team with a lot of new guys, it kind of takes a while to get that jelling,” Knight said. “We know what each other can and can’t bring to the table and we know what we should be bringing to the table. We hold each other accountable now.”Meanwhile, Florida continues to just buzz right along. The Gators were crowned the league’s regular-season champ a week ago and have won nine of their last 10 games. Chandler Parsons was named SEC Player of the Year last week, and his surrounding cast of Erving Walker, Kenny Boynton, Alex Tyus and Vernon Macklin is as good as anyone’s in the country.On Saturday, Florida drilled 11 3-pointers to defeat Vanderbilt 77-66. The Gators also held the John Jenkins-led Commodores to 6 of 33 from behind the arc a day after beating Tennessee.”I think it’s a great accomplishment for us,” Boynton said. “The key to these games were our focus to get one win and move on to the next. We have had a problem with that this year, winning big games and then losing to other teams. But I think that lately we have been doing well just moving on from wins.”One of Florida’s big wins this year’s was a two-point victory over Kentucky in Gainesville, Fla., another one of UK’s six losses by five points or less. UK evened the season series two weeks ago with a 10-point win in Lexington and hasn’t looked back since.”You want to hit a high stretch going into the tournament,” Knight said.Kentucky and Florida seem to have hit that point at the right time of the season. Now two immovable objects will meet in heavyweight collision course in Sunday’s SEC Tournament championship game.Cleary, something has to give.