Gators Shoot it From Everywhere in 95-63 Rout of Auburn

Saturday, January 23

Gainesville, FL

8:00 PM

Florida Gators

Auburn

Senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith had a season-high 24 points Saturday night against Auburn.

Gators Shoot it From Everywhere in 95-63 Rout of Auburn

Sunday, January 24, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- It wasn't that long ago that Florida coach Mike White was making regular mentions about how basketball team was searching for an offensive identity.

Is it possible the Gators have found one?

"If shots keep falling like that, I like this identity," White said Saturday night.

White's "that" was a reference to this: 56.9 percent from the floor, 47.4 from 3-point range and 83.3 from the free-throw line. Those were the numbers that came out of UF's 95-63 obliteration of Auburn, as the Gators ran away with a third straight Southeastern Conference victory before 11,230 at the O'Connell Center.

Senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith started the game by hitting his first seven field-goal attempts on his way to pacing five teammates into double-figure scoring with a season-high 24 points to go with eight rebounds. Sophomore center John Egbunu had 12 points and nine rebounds. Point guards Chris Chiozza and Kasey Hill each had 14 points and combined for 12 of UF's 20 assists, which equaled its season high. Freshman guard KeVaughn Allen tallied a third straight game in double figures with 11 points.

"We made shots, we got stops, got out in transition and let our offense come from our defense," Finney Smith said. "We have to be a defensive team first."

The Gators (13-6, 5-2) did it all early and often and the reward was a four-way tie for second place in the SEC standings.

The Tigers (9-9, 3-4), coming off back-to-back wins over Kentucky and rival Alabama, forced a live-ball turnover four seconds into the game that became a run-out layup for star guard Kareem Canty. On Auburn's second possession of the game, guard Bryce Brown nailed a 3-point shot.

Then Florida went on an 18-0 run.

Finney-Smith scored 10 of those 18, including a pair of 3-pointers, as UF pounced to a 20-5 lead barely six minutes in. Five minutes later, the lead ballooned to 24 points, with the Gators shooting 70 percent from the floor and 70 percent from the 3-point line 12 minutes into the game.

"Florida played great," Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said after the most lopsided SEC win for UF since a 69-36 home wipeout of Texas A&M on Feb. 1, 2014. "They dominated. We struggled."

The Tigers shot just 35.8 percent for the game and went 6-for-24 from the 3-point line, finishing three makes below their lead-leading 9.8 treys per game. Canty, who came in averaging 19.4 points per game, was just 6-for-15 from the floor and 0-for-6 from deep for 10 points. The UF frontcourt didn't let Cinmeon Bowers (20 points, 18 rebounds against Alabama Tuesday) get off either. He was 2-for-13 from the floor to go with nine boards.

"We played defense for 40 minutes," Chiozza said.

Offense, too.

After ripping the rims for 54.5 percent in the first half, the Gators actually shot it better in the second half -- 60 percent -- in leading by as many as 37. That's because, White later explained, his team finally is playing to its strength. That means working inside-out, whether through Finney-Smith or Egbunu in the post, instead of searching for shots along the perimeter.

"We're putting the pieces together," Egbunu said. "We're starting to buy into what the coaches are telling us to do."

The Gators are getting a lot of the same shots they got earlier in the season, only now they're going in at a 12-percent clip better than back in non-conference play. UF has now made at least nine 3-pointers in six of its seven SEC games and is hitting 40 percent from deep in league competition. Against Auburn, five different guys made 3s, led by a trio from Finney-Smith.

But Finney-Smith and Egbunu are getting more and more involved in the halfcourt.

"Dorian is playing like an all-league player, John has made a big jump in his game and we've done a better job of finding them in spots -- and we're getting better shots," White said. "As I told our guys in the locker room, if you could compliment the shooting and free-throw percentages with the way we valued the ball and our decision-making the first two-thirds of the season, now you've got something."

Definitely worth noting: UF turned the ball over 16 times, making for a fourth straight game with at least 15 giveaways. In a game when the Gators shot the lights out, that carelessness did not come back to bite them.

Ball security is an area White intends to focus on, as the Florida schedule is about to become much more difficult, starting this week when the Gators go to Vanderbilt, then return home to face No. 6 West Virginia. So consider the identity still very much in the forging phase.

But far more encouraging than a month ago.

Making shots will do that.