Kentucky’s offense wins out against No. 6 Florida. Here’s the ‘most important ingredient.’

A tremendous offensive performance filled with momentum-turning stretches — and ultimately a 106-100 victory over previously undefeated Florida — behind him, Mark Pope struggled for a moment to come up with the reasoning behind the runs that propelled Kentucky to victory.

Pope’s 10th-ranked Wildcats had just sent the No. 6 Gators to their first loss of the season in Rupp Arena on Saturday, a win punctuated by three lopsided series in favor of UK.

To explain the first one — a 16-0 run that sent the Cats from down 11 to up 31-26, never to trail again — the UK basketball coach had an easy answer. (More on that later.)

For the other two — a pair of 10-0 runs, one in the first half, one in the second, both coming at key times in the game — Pope searched for the “how” behind what his team had done.

When he came to the answer in his mind, he offered a disclaimer before saying it out loud.

“This is gonna sound soft,” Pope warned.

His explanation? Two days earlier, his injured point guard Kerr Kriisa had celebrated his 24th birthday. But, for Kriisa, there wasn’t a whole lot to celebrate. The fifth-year college player suffered a foot injury last month that has now kept him out of five games, and counting.

Kriisa still needs crutches to get around. On Thursday — the day he turned 24 — his coach offered an update on his condition, said the injury had been “devastating” for a competitor like Kriisa and offered no real hint of a timetable on when he might return.

So, knowing all of this, his Kentucky teammates came up with an idea. While UK walk-ons Grant Darbyshire and Walker Horn took Kriisa to Costco as a diversion, the other Wildcats gathered at the house where he’d be returning and waited for his arrival.

The scene that followed was captured on video: Kriisa hobbling into the house on crutches, his teammates jumping out from around the corner to surprise him. Kriisa reacted with pure shock, stepping backward to gather himself. But he was laughing by the time he got both legs in the house.

“They all snuck into his apartment — like little kids — to go surprise them,” Pope said two days later. “And I actually think those runs come from a group like that. I really do. I think it comes from being together. And these guys are working so hard to be together as much as they can. And I think that’s probably the most important ingredient.”

Against one of the best defenses in college basketball, togetherness was a key. And what happened on the Rupp floor Saturday was a collective effort, with six Wildcats scoring in double figures, each of them playing a large part in the win at various stages throughout the game.

Back to that first run, the 16-0 stretch that saw Kentucky completely turn its fortunes around.

“Well, to have the first run you need Otega Oweh,” Pope said, knowing full well he was stating the obvious. “It’s just the most humbling thing in the world to watch these guys grow. And the game is such an incredible teacher.”

At that point, UK was down 26-15, the early-game struggles that led to losses against Clemson and Ohio State — and eventual comeback wins over Duke and Gonzaga — looking all too familiar to a Rupp crowd that was seeing its first Top 25 opponent in Lexington this season.

Koby Brea hit a 3-pointer to make it 26-18, and then Oweh took over.

The junior guard drove for an and-one finish. Then he threw down a putback dunk. After another 3 from Brea tied the game at 26, Oweh drove for another bucket. And then he hit a 3-pointer of his own. A 16-0 run in less than four minutes, and Rupp was really rocking for the first time of the day. But not the last.

Pope pointed out that Oweh — now a double-digit scorer in all 14 of his games as a Wildcat — had subbed out before the first media timeout Saturday and was coming off a game — 13 points in a win over Brown on Tuesday — that he wasn’t proud of.

“Otega’s first rotation was a little shorter than normal … and he sat for a little while,” Pope said. “And he was coming off a game where he didn’t love it. And then he refused to allow any of that to affect his intensity or his drive. And so then he came back in, and we were a little bit sideways and couldn’t kind of find our rhythm. And he was like, ‘You guys, just relax. I’ll come find all of your rhythm for you.’”

Later in the half, the game was tied at 40, and Kentucky did it again.

This time, Jaxson Robinson started things off with a 3-pointer and then a jumper. Lamont Butler picked the pocket of Florida star Walter Clayton Jr. and finished off an and-one at the other end, the Rupp crowd erupting into a “Go Big Blue!” chant when he hit the layup before quieting down in time for Butler to hit his free throw in relative silence.

By the time Butler hit a stepback jumper to complete the 10-0 run, the crowd had resumed its chant.

“I thought they did a great job taking advantage of the moment,” Florida coach Todd Golden said of UK’s general resolve after his Gators (13-1) suffered their first loss of the season.

Many of the biggest moments for Kentucky (12-2) belonged to Brea.

Following UK’s final 10-0 run of the game — a sequence that turned a 70-69 lead into an 80-69 advantage — the Gators wouldn’t quite go away. They narrowed it to six. Then Brea hit a 3-pointer. They narrowed it to five. And then Brea hit a 3-pointer. They narrowed it to six again. And then Brea hit another 3-pointer, his seventh of the day.

“He was magical tonight, wasn’t he?” Pope said. “And I don’t know. You’re hard pressed to make a real cogent argument that he’s not the best shooter in the country. It’s ridiculous. The way he shoots it. How he gets it off. Where he shoots it. How high he shoots it. And, clearly, he was massively important for us.”

Brea went 7-for-9 from 3-point range and scored a team-high 23 points. Both were career highs.

“I didn’t really notice what was going on,” he said of the numbers. “I don’t really pay too much attention to how much I’ve been hitting throughout the game. But to hear it afterwards is pretty cool. I think anytime you’re able to accomplish a career high, it’s always a good feeling. So, just me doing what I do. My teammates — like I always say — they give me the rock with the utmost confidence, and, you know, I’m just gonna keep shooting.”

Brea’s excellence behind the arc was also part of a collective effort. The Cats were 14-for-29 from deep against the Gators, arguably their best 3-point shooting performance of the season. Given the competition, that was remarkable.

Florida walked into Rupp with the nation’s second-best 3-point defense — behind only top-ranked Tennessee — and had allowed opponents to shoot just 26.6% from deep all season. South Florida went 13-for-27 against the Gators in the season opener. Since then, they hadn’t allowed any team to make more than eight 3s against them, and no opponent had hit better than 38.1% from deep in any of those games.

“With just guarding the line, we thought if we did a good job on Koby and Jaxson, that we’d be in good shape. And we just didn’t,” Golden said. “I thought Koby did a great job taking advantage of his opportunities. And there were times where we were staying in space, but it felt like every time we gave him a little bit of room, he was able to separate and knock it down. He didn’t let us off the hook at all today. You know, he banged seven of them.”

Brea noted after the game that it was also his brother’s birthday. His little bro, Tyler, turned 9 years old Saturday, and Brea said he knew he’d be watching back home in New York. He also said he wears his jersey number (4) because of Tyler, who would have been that age when Brea began his college career.

“So it’s really emotional for me, just to see him grow up,” he said, a smile on his face and eyes glistening. “And he loves the game of basketball, too. Every time I go home, he shows me a new move or something. So it’s just really cool, being a big brother and to have him look up to me.”

Golden pointed out that Robinson — the other defensive priority on the perimeter for his guys — made only two 3-pointers. “But he made some big ones,” the Florida coach conceded.

The first started that 10-0 run late in the first half, putting the Cats up for good. The other came early in the second half, with the Gators trying to claw back. It apparently still wasn’t enough for Robinson, who reappeared on the Rupp court well after the game ended to put up more shots.

After a while, Pope came back out to talk to him. Then the coach gave him a hug and walked off the floor. Robinson stuck around to shoot some more.

Brea’s 23 points were followed by Butler with 19 (plus a career-high eight assists), Oweh with 16, Amari Williams with 15, and Robinson and Andrew Carr with 14 apiece. Butler hit a corner 3-pointer out of the final TV timeout to give UK a 92-87 lead. Carr nailed one with about 90 seconds left to make it 99-91.

“That Carr 3 was huge,” Golden said. “I think that was kind of the cherry on top for them, and iced it.”

Pope was excited about the 29 3-point attempts — and especially that his Cats made 14 of them — a positive step in UK’s quest to get to 35 long-range shots per game. He talked glowingly about a few individual sequences from some of his players. But he was perhaps most positive when speaking of the way the Wildcats shared the ball.

Kentucky had 25 assists and just six turnovers against — according to one metric Pope shared from the podium Saturday afternoon — the best halfcourt defense in college basketball.

With one SEC game down and a grueling road ahead, that’s reason to smile.

“We’re learning how fun this is,” Pope said. “I think that’s the overwhelming thing for us. Like, we only get to do this 17 more times (in the regular season), and so we just can’t waste a minute, man. And I hope BBN doesn’t miss a second of it. And it’s going to be great times and hard times, but they’re all going to be growing times. And that’s why it’s so fun to play in this league.”

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