Late-Arriving Gators Can't Catch Tigers

Saturday, February 27

Baton Rouge, LA

8:30 PM

Florida Gators

LSU

LSU's Ben Simmons swats a pass away intended for UF's Dorian Finney-Smith chase a loose ball Saturday night in Baton Rouge.

Late-Arriving Gators Can't Catch Tigers

Sunday, February 28, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

BATON ROUGE, La. -- The numbers border on mind-boggling.

The Florida Gators, an offensive train wreck for much of the season, shot 55 percent for the game Saturday night at Maravich Assembly Center, including 66 percent in the second half and 58 from the 3-point line on the way to scoring 62 points, with 51 coming in the final 13 minutes.

And lost.

LSU freshman guard Antonio Blakeney poured in a career-high 32 points, including 10 straight free throws in the final 28.5 seconds to not only hold off the late-arriving Gators, but deal a devastating blow to their quest to get back to the NCAA Tournament. The defeat was the third straight for Florida (17-12, 8-8), the fourth in the last five, and locked them into a five-way tie for sixth place in the Southeastern Conference standings with two games remaining in the regular season, starting Tuesday night in the home finale against Kentucky.

"Every time we lose, it hurts. Your chances decrease," Gators coach Mike White said of his team's flickering hopes for an NCAA at-large bid. "We still have our chances, but if our guys are in the locker room right now thinking about the NCAA Tournament, they're incorrect. We need to be concerned with how we guard somebody or figure out how to pass the ball without throwing it to the other team."

As well as UF shot, the Tigers (17-12, 10-6) were right there also, thanks to 55.8 percent from the floor and 44.4 from deep. The Gators made some of those shots come easier, with 16 turnovers that led to 21 points. Ten of those giveaways came in the first half and turned into 17 points, with six of the turnovers off the hands of point guards Chris Chiozza and Kasey Hill.

UF fell behind by 12 early, only to score 15 straight points over a four-minute span to take a 23-20 lead. Then LSU scored 10-0 while the Gators went six straight possessions without a score. With that sloppy offense, Florida trailed 40-29 at intermission and LSU took the margin out to as much as 18 -- the Tigers led 58-40 with 13:40 to play -- before the Gators' sense of urgency kicked in.

Finally.

And too late.

"We had to do something, so we wouldn't be embarrassed out there," sophomore forward Devin Robinson said.

Face may have been saved as far as the final score, but that's not the objective. No Gator took it as that, either.

"I thought our guys played incredibly hard in the last 12 to 14 minutes," White said. "Unfortunately, the game is 40 minutes long."

Blakeney had 21 in the second half, while fellow freshman Ben Simmons, the No. 1 pick in the 2016 NBA draft in-waiting, stuffed the stat sheet with 22 points, 11 rebounds, five assists and four steals. Senior guard Tim Quarterman, held to just three points in UF's 68-62 win in Gainesville nearly two months ago, had 15 points and made three 3-pointers.

The Gators got a career-high 22 points from sophomore center John Egbunu, who put in eight of his 11 shots. Robinson and senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith had 15 and 14 points, respectively, and combined to go 8-for-11 from the 3-point arc. Hill had 16 points off the bench and hit some big second-half shots, but he and Chiozza (8 points, 7 assists) together finished with 10 assists and eight turnovers. Several of the latter were loud going the other way.

"We weren't being pressured, we weren't being pressed, [yet] we made terrible decisions in the first half at the point guard position," White said. "I can take losses to good teams, especially on the road and to play really, really hard like we did in the last 12 to 14 minutes of the game. It's just unfortunate we dug ourselves that big a hole by being stuck in the mud in transition defense and making costly errors."

The Tigers led by 10 with 1:30 left when Egbunu threw down a dunk to make it an eight-point game. After a couple missed free throws at the LSU end, Robinson hit a 3-pointer to cut the margin to five -- and get the sellout crowd of 13,488's attention -- with Quarterman making just one of two free throws on LSU's next possession. Chiozza, meanwhile, followed with two for Florida.

Four-point game with 1:01 left.

"We were playing with more energy," Egbunu said.

More desperation, also. Again, too little, too late.

LSU split a couple more trips to the line, with Hill nailing a 3-pointer and Egbunu hitting one of two free throws to twice trim the lead to two, the last time at 87-85 with 30 seconds left.

White wanted to extend the game into as many possessions as possible, ordering his players to foul -- off the ball, if need be -- to stop the clock. It just so happened that Blakeney kept getting the whistle and stepping to the line. A 69.6-percent free-throw shooter for the season, Blakeney missed two of his first seven for the game.

"I missed some early on," Blakeney said. "I just tried to forget about that and knock them down."

In the final 28.5 seconds, he went 10-for-10.

Like a week ago at South Carolina, where they lost in overtime, the Gators made a game of it against an opponent in the hunt for the SEC title. This time of year, though, "games" only count when the scoreboard is on your side.

"We just need a win, that's basically it," Robinson said. "Our backs are against the wall now."

The blindfolds haven't been given out.

Not yet.