Bacon's Shot Outshines Allen in Seminoles' Last-Second Stunner

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Call it a "good news/bad news" kind of game for the Florida Gators -- if it's even possible to gleen good news from a cold-blooded, dagger-to-the-heart defeat against one of your biggest rivals.

Florida State freshman guard Dwayne Bacon drove the lane, pulled up and buried a 10 jumper with 4.6 seconds left to lift the Seminoles to a pulsating 73-71 victory Tuesday night in front of a bummed-out, suddenly silenced O'Connell Center crowd of 10,121.

The Gators, eschewing a timeout after Bacon's bucket, had one last chance to tie or win the game, but Chris Chiozza's desperation chuck from 30-plus feet bounced off the back of the rim at the buzzer.

"Tough deal for our guys," said a somber UF coach Mike White afterward. "Tough for our seniors, our players and our fans."

But here's the rub: The Gators (8-4) would not have been close to the Seminoles (10-2), much less in position to win the game, were it not for the coming-out party of rookie guard KeVaughn Allen, who poured in a career-high 32 points to become just the sixth freshman in UF history to hit the 30-point mark.

Allen, the 6-foot-2 scoring machine from Little Rock, Ark., filled it up in every way possible, hitting 10 of 18 shots, three of seven from the 3-point line and all nine of his free-throw attempts. He also had a driving, in-traffic dish-off that got a wide-open layup for senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith (10 points, 7 rebounds) that tied the game at 71 with 23.7 seconds left and took O'Dome environment to another level.

"I felt I was more confident out there than usual," said the soft-spoken Allen, who'd hit double figures only four times in the first 11 games, only to become the first Gator freshman to pour in 30 since Matt Walsh against Miami on Dec. 21, 2002. "I was more confident out there than usual. Just feeling the game more. As each game goes by, I'm getting more comfortable."

Said FSU coach Leonard Hamilton: "I watched [Allen] a lot in high school. It was just a matter of time before he was going to break out and have one of these games. Sit back, relax and enjoy the ride. He's going to have a more like this one."

Unfortunately for Florida, the freshman guard on the other bench -- Bacon, the 6-foot-7, 220-pound McDonald's All-American from Lakeland, Fla. -- found his comfort zone from the moment he took the floor Day 1 for the Seminoles.

After Finney-Smith's basket knotted the score, Hamilton took a timeout. There was little intrigue as to who was going to get the ball.

The Seminoles got it to Bacon at the top of the key, where he was guarded by 6-1 Kasey Hill. Bacon had enough explosion to get where he wanted to be; and more than enough height to get it off over Hill.

"He made a tough shot," Finney-Smith said. "He's a tall guard, a big guard. He just got a little space on Kasey and that's all he needed."

It wasn't the only damage Bacon did on his way to leading the Seminoles with 24 points. He went 9-for-17 from the floor and 5-for-8 from the 3-point arc, despite coming into the game just 8-for-31 (25.8 percent) from long-distance for the season.

Fellow guards Devon Bookert (11 points), Xavier Rathan-Mayes (11 points, 3 assists) and Malik Beasley (10 points) also finished in double-figures for the Seminoles, who were torching one of the best defensive teams in the country for 50-percent shooting before the home team decided to pick up the intensity.

"I thought our guys fought valiantly in the second half," White said of the rally from a 51-38 deficit. "The last 15 minutes, we played as hard as we could possibly play."

Finney-Smith: "To bad we couldn't play 40 minutes like the last 15."

Allen was at the forefront of the comeback, which could was welcomed news given UF's struggles for offensive production at the two-guard spot this season. But so Hill (10 points) and Chiozza (4 points, 5 assists, 2 steals) were in the middle of it, too. Those three guards, undersized yet playing together, helped the Gators overcome an uncharacteristic off night from the front court, as Finney-Smith, forward Devin Robinson and center John Egbunu combined for just 20 points and just seven of their 20 field goals.

UF didn't help by continuing its masonry ways from the 3-point line, finishing just 4-for-25 from deep (16 percent). Throw out Allen and the Gators were 1-for-18.

But still, they kept fighting, scraping and managed to stick within a possession or two or three most of the game. Each time, though, some Seminole stepped up.

"They made big play after big play," White said. "Offensively, every run or mini-run we made ... they answered with scores."

Hill and Finney-Smith knocked down both ends of one-and-ones in the final 2:12 to draw the Gators within a point. Then Beasley made one of two free throws with 34 seconds left, setting up the Finney-Smith feed from Allen that tied the game and jacked the volume in the dome to DeafeningCom 1.

Then Bacon hit the off switch.

"I wish we'd have made it more difficult for him," White said. "But he made a huge play."

One more than Allen did. And Allen made a bunch. That was the good news.

The bad won out.

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Bacon's Shot Outshines Allen in Seminoles' Last-Second Stunner

Players Mentioned

KeVaughn Allen

Chris Chiozza

John Egbunu

Dorian Finney-Smith

Kasey Hill

Devin Robinson

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Bacon's Shot Outshines Allen in Seminoles' Last-Second Stunner

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KeVaughn Allen

Chris Chiozza

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Dorian Finney-Smith

Kasey Hill

Devin Robinson

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