Feb. 18, 1998

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) – Nazr Mohammed scored 19 points and Jeff Sheppardadded 18 Wednesday night as eighth-ranked Kentucky avenged an earlier loss toFlorida with a 79-54 rout.

Kentucky (23-4, 11-2 Southeastern Conference) rebounded from a nine-pointloss at home to Mississippi and won for the 11th time in its last 12 meetingswith Florida (13-10, 6-7), which played without suspended star guard JasonWilliams.

The victory avenged Kentucky’s 86-78 loss to Florida on Feb. 1, a game inwhich Williams scored 24 points and had four steals for the Gators, who hadtrouble Wednesday night setting their offense without their playmaker andleading scorer.

At one point in the first half, Florida had as many turnovers as field goalattempts (12) and Kentucky used a 25-6 run to break the game open en route to a41-24 halftime lead.

Williams was dismissed for the season this week for what Florida describedas a violation of team and athletic department policy. The suspension was thethird this season for the junior, who was averaging 17.1 points, 6.7 assistsand nearly three steals per game.

Without him, Florida shot 38 percent and finished with 22 turnovers,including 19 Kentucky steals. Greg Stolt led the Gators with 13 points, but theteam’s other four starters were held to 23.

Besides taking advantage of the absence of Williams, Kentucky also heldKenyan Weaks to seven points after the Florida guard had 24 points and sevenrebounds in the earlier meeting between the teams.

Kentucky was slow to respond to a change in the starting lineup, but tookcontrol after David Williams hit a 3-pointer to give Florida its last lead,13-12.

Instead of its usual starting five, Kentucky began the game with fourguards, with Saul Smith and Cameron Mills making their first starts of theseason in place of forwards Allen Edwards and Scott Padgett, who started theWildcats’ previous 26 games.