LEXINGTON, Ky. » Top-ranked Kentucky is one game away from clinching its first unbeaten regular season.

Big Blue Nation never expects their beloved Wildcats to ever lose, but running the table would be an achievement few foresaw even for a program that constantly faces high expectations.

The journey hasn’t been pretty and capping it off won’t be easy.

The Wildcats have had near-flawless performances and gut checks along the way, including Tuesday night’s late escape against Georgia in their last outing.

Now, all that stands in the way for Kentucky to go 31-0 is Florida (15-15, 8-9 Southeastern Conference) in Saturday’s regular season finale. The Gators gave the Wildcats (30-0, 17-0 SEC) all they could handle last month in Gainesville, but Kentucky sees it as just another hurdle in their quest for the ultimate reward.

They understand, though, others don’t see just another game.

"Every game seems to be an event," Wildcats coach John Calipari said Friday as he tried to downplay its significance. "This will be another event."

The Wildcats have been ranked No. 1 all season and are beating opponents by nearly 22 points per game. They’ve trailed for just 165.1 of 1,215 minutes this season.

Some of Kentucky’s best efforts have come against marquee opponents — beating Kansas by 32 points and UCLA by 39. They also have double-digit wins over Top-25 opponents including Texas and North Carolina. They toppled the Tar Heels after losing starting forward Alex Poythress to a season-ending knee injury two days before that showdown.

Still, unheralded schools such as Buffalo, Boston University and Columbia made the Wildcats work harder than expected. The first week of SEC play was especially tense as Mississippi and Texas A&M pushed Kentucky to overtime before the Wildcats gutted out wins with their length and depth.

Kentucky has embraced the challenges along the way.

When Kentucky trailed by nine points with nine minutes left at pesky Georgia, Calipari told his team in a huddle that he hoped they fell behind by 10 so they could see how they’d respond. They won 72-64.

"Nobody panicked, everybody just stayed doing what they do," 7-footer Willie Cauley-Stein said. "You’ve got to come up and make plays when it’s like that, and that’s the NCAA tournament right there. That was a great test for us."

Now, they’re just one win away from achieving something that past great Kentucky teams couldn’t.

Former Wildcats forward Kenny Walker said it’s impressive with all the parity in college basketball and players leaving school after a year or two. Indiana was the last unbeaten NCAA champion in 1976, though several teams have won their first 30 or more games — most recently last year’s Wichita State squad that began 35-0 before falling, ironically, to Kentucky in the third round.

"You’ve got to try and get it done in one or two years, and that’s even more difficult," said Walker, a two-time All-American who played for Kentucky from 1983-86. "What Kentucky is doing is really going beyond anything that we’ve seen. If they can keep it up, it can go down as one of the greatest seasons in college basketball because of the number of games they’d have won to do it."

Kentucky will have to earn it with a second win against Florida this season. The Wildcats will have 6-foot-10 freshman Trey Lyles this time around after he missed the previous meeting with strep throat.

The Gators feel they let one get away in last month’s 68-61 loss to Kentucky.

"You have to play a game where you can’t be inconsistent at all against them," Florida coach Billy Donovan said.

Florida gets leading scorer Michael Frazier (13.2 points) back for the game and has no interest in becoming a footnote in Kentucky history.

"We’ve just got to go in there, accept the challenge and go in there to win the game," junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith said. "We can’t get frustrated when things don’t go our way."

AP Sports Writer Mark Long in Gainesville, Florida, contributed to this report.