Sandy's Wade Baldwin IV drives into the Florida defense -- namely Dorian Finney-Smith (10) and Kevarrius Hayes (13) -- on his way to a game-high 24 points
Gators Dig Themselves a First-Half Hole at Vandy
Wednesday, January 27, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- Nineteen points.
Yes, Memorial Gymnasium is old, but the Florida Gators played the first half of Tuesday night's game at Vanderbilt like they were shooting at peach baskets.
Try, 7-for-33 from the floor.
Eventually, UF refocused its collective shooting eye -- a little bit -- and axed a big chunk out of the home team's double-digit second-half lead, but the end result was a 60-59 loss that may look more aesthetically pleasing for the record books, yet goes down as a defeat nonetheless.
Vandy guard Wade Baldwin IV scored 24 points, including a pair of free throws with 7.1 seconds left to give the Commodores a four-point lead that ultimately offset some late-arriving offense from Gators freshman guard KeVaughn Allen, who scored 11 of his 16 points in the game's final 31 seconds to provide some too-little, too-late drama. The Vandy frontcourt combination of 7-foot center Damien Jones and 7-1 forward Luke Kornet combined to score 24 points, grab 21 rebounds and block eight shots.
Allen and backup junior guard Kasey Hill, also with 16, led their team in the scoring column, while senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith went for his fourth double-double in six games, carding 12 points and a season-high 14 rebounds. Finney-Smith also had five of UF's 13 turnovers, as the Gators (13-7, 5-3) had a three-game Southeastern Conference win streak snapped.
Florida basically returned to its formula of earlier in the season; bad shooting mixed with just enough defensive breakdowns to undermine an otherwise solid effort in terms of energy.
"The biggest concern for me [coming in] was how we were going to score because what they make you do is something we're not very good at," Florida coach Mike White said. "We're not a team that has a lot of success driving the lane, that makes a lot of one-on-one plays and finishes at the rim. We're a team that has to pound it into the paint."
Lately, UF had been a team that knocked down an excellent percentage of 3-point shots -- 38.5 percent in Southeastern Conference play -- but the Commodores (12-8, 4-4) weren't giving many open looks out there, either. Instead, the Vandy defensive plan was to blitz the Gators on the perimeter and force them to try and drive at the Commodores' massive bigs protecting the post. Kornet was particularly effective in those situations, accounting for six of the team's nine blocks and altering a number of others just by being in the area.
"You just got to make shots," Hill said. "That's all it is."
When the final numbers were in, Florida took a whopping 26 more field-goal attempts (70-44), but converted only 23 of those shots (32.9 percent). That was five more than Vandy's 18 field goals for the game, but the Commodores lived at the free-throw line much of the night, hitting 21 of their 33 attempts, compared to just six of 10 for the Gators.
Along the way, UF lost starting forward Justin Leon to a head injury, after the team's top 3-point shooter took an inadvertent forearm from Kornet and went sprawling to the floor three minutes into the game. Leon left the game and did not return to the bench.
"To win on the road in the SEC, with loose balls and missed block-outs, that's Justin's strength," White said. "He gives us toughness."
And an occasional basket, which would have come in handy in the first half. Either half, actually, given the final score.
"We feel good about scoring one more point than they did," Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said.
Both teams started the game cold, with the score tied at 9-all a little more than eight minutes in.
That's when Jones really made his presence known inside, forcing UF's 6-11, 255-pound center John Egbunu (2 points, 4 rebounds) to the sideline with two fouls. Jones put in seven points in a 9-0 Vanderbilt run while the Gators went 3 1/2 minutes without scoring, as the home team opened a 20-9 lead.
With less than a minute left in the half, Florida had just 16 points, but got a trio of free throws late to trail 30-19 at the break after going 0-for-10 from the 3-point arc.
"You can't fall behind like that, especially against a team like Vandy," Hill said.
Said Finney-Smith: "They play good defense, but eventually we started hitting shots."
For a spell, yes. When the second half resumed, the Gators opened by hitting nine of their first 13 shots. When Hill drained a 3-pointer to pull UF within 44-40 and force a Commodores timeout with 9:45 left, the Gators had bypassed their first-half scoring output in just over 10 minutes.
And then they hit one of their next 14 shots to fall back by 14.
The lead was eight with a minute to go when the Gators scored 13 in the last 55 seconds, but Wade and Kornet hit just enough free throws to make Allen's 3-pointer from the corner at the game's final buzzer a footnote.
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