UF Dominates Charlotte to Wrap 11-Game Road Marathon

Saturday, December 17

Sunrise, FL

4 PM

Florida Gators

Charlotte

Forward Devin Robinson finger-rolls to the basket Saturday. The junior forward scored 15 points, grabbed nine rebounds and was named Most Outstanding Player of UF's defeat of Charlotte in the Orange Bowl Classic. [Photos by Adler Garfield]

UF Dominates Charlotte to Wrap 11-Game Road Marathon

Saturday, December 17, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score Photo Gallery by Adler Garfield & Paul Fong

Devin Robinson led the Gators to the most lopsided victory in Orange Bowl Classic history.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

SUNRISE, Fla. — The Orange Bowl Classic has been staged annually since 1994, but no team in the 23-year history of the event had ever been as dominant as the Florida Gators were Saturday.

Forward Devin Robinson scored 15 points, grabbed nine rebounds and was named the game's Most Outstanding Player, while swingman Canyon Barry came off the bench to throw in 16 points, mostly from the free-throw line, as UF mauled Charlotte on the defensive end and the glass on the way to an 87-46 victory at BB&T Center.

A review of the carnage showed the Gators (8-3) did not just snapped their two-game losing streak, but set a record for points in regulation and established an OBC mark for the largest margin of victory, doing it against an opponent that was averaging 81 points per game and had eclipsed 100 three times this season

"Probably the closest thing we've come to putting together a complete 40 minutes," UF coach Mike White said.

The Gators used an early 10-point run to open a cushion, then completely overwhelmed the undersized 49ers (6-4) with their length and athleticism, even with 6-foot-11, 250-pound starting center John Egbunu sidelined with a hamstring injury. When UF went to the locker room with 48-22 halftime lead it had outshot UNCC from the floor 50 percent to 27.5, had a fat rebounding edge of 44-23 and forced 20 turnovers. When it was over, only one 49er reached double-figure scoring, while 10 of the 11 Gators that played all scored, with eight hitting at least six points.

"Really bad loss to a really good team," said UNCC coach Mark Price said, whose club trailed by 44 with seven minutes to play. "You come out and you know you're going to have to play your best to have a shot against a team like that, but they punched us in the mouth early and we just never responded."

The Gators, meanwhile, never really let up.

That has been a criticism — not to mention a disturbing trend — in UF's games this season, especially coming out in the second half. Florida may have been a tad slow out of the locker room again, but only for a few possessions and more so being careless with the ball versus being loose on the defensive end.

"It was about us getting better," said sophomore center Kevarrius Hayes, who replaced Egbunu in the starting unit and posted nine points and five rebounds in 19 minutes. "We'd been having one good half, then slacking off. We wanted to have two good halves, so we were focused on doing the same thing in the second as we did in the first half."

How's this?

* First half: UF held UNCC to just six field goals on 23 attempts (26.1 percent), with only three coming from inside the 3-point arc. The 49ers scored 22 points.

* Second half: UF held UNCC to eight field goals on 28 shots (27.5 percent), with only one 3-pointer. The 49ers scored 24 points after the break.

Offensively, the Gators shot 51.5 in the first half and 48 in the second, taking advantage of the smaller 49ers, with no starters over 6-7, for a 38-14 edge on points in the paint. Seven UF players had at least four rebounds.

"With John out, we all had to rebound," Robinson said.

They all did.

"This is what we want to hang our hat on — using our length and our size," White said. "It's how we sold out to play with this team, it's what we're capable of. We just have to do it more often. Our attention to detail for defensive rebounding was better than it's been all this season — maybe all last season, too."

Sophomore center Kevarrius Hayes stepped up for nine points and five rebounds in his first start of the season.

White praised Hayes, who made his first start since the NIT last March when Egbunu underwent season-ending surgery to repair torn ligaments in his thumb. The 6-9 high-motor backup was in solid position on both ends of the floor. He hit the first basket of the game on a move in the low post and a couple possessions later showed some range when he knocked down a 17-foot jumper from the elbow.

"It felt great, just coming out here and getting the start, but it wasn't much different," Hayes said. "My job was still the same. I still had to do the same things I normally do."

And after the job was done, Hayes and his teammate hopped on the bus for the six-hour ride back to Gainesville and thus put the finishing touches on an 11-game, eight-venue odyssey of nothing but road and neutral-site games since the 2016-17 season open back on Nov. 11. Come Wednesday night, the Gators' run of 17 straight games away from home will end with the grand opening of the $64.5 million renovated Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, where they'll take on Arkansas-Little Rock.

In the big picture, they survived a pretty rugged stretch of inconvenience.

"It's not a subject that has even been brought up," White said of the six-week road swing through mostly Florida (and almost exclusively by bus). "I don't know that we're the most mature team, but we're a lot more mature today than we were in September and I like the way our guys have handled the adversity."

They wrapped it by manhandling Charlotte.

Time to go home.