Gators Eventually Do Enough to Solve Aggies Defense

Saturday, February 11

Gainesville, FL

12 PM

Florida Gators

Texas A&M

Senior forward Justin Leon throws one down early in Saturday's win over the Aggies.

Gators Eventually Do Enough to Solve Aggies Defense

Saturday, February 11, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score Photo Gallery by Tim Casey, Allison Curry, Sydney Jones, and Kelly Streeter

Justin Leon's 18 points led four teammates into double figures and the Gators to a sixth straight win.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — What the Florida Gators did in winning the previous five games in utter convincing fashion (including that love fest blowout of Kentucky last weekend) made a lot of folks in orange and blue feel pretty good about their basketball squad.

But a team that aspires to be special needs to win games like the one that played out Saturday at Exactech Arena. The home team wasn't making shots. The visitors had a bouncy kind of confidence. There was a sense of uneasiness in the building well into the second half.

Inside 12 minutes go, Florida trailed Texas A&M by four and had missed 13 of their 15 shots in the second half. But then something happened. A couple balls went through the basket. On the other end, better Florida defense happened. Not so coincidentally, that four-point deficit became a four-point lead, then eight, then 10 and eventually worked its way to a grinding 71-62 win in front of 10,732.

And grinding wins are better than grinding losses.

Senior forward Justin Leon scored 18 points, burying four of his eight 3-point shots, including a pair of key long ones down the stretch. Junior center John Egbunu carded his first double-double of the season with 10 points and 11 rebounds. Reserves Canyon Barry and Chris Chiozza hit double-figure scoring off the bench with 12 and 11 points, respectively, to keep the Gators (20-5, 10-2) tied atop the Southeastern Conference standings and send them to a sixth straight win on a day they were far from their best.

"We'll take it," Coach Mike White said.

In a heartbeat.

Along the way, the Gators may have taken a few beats from their fans during a run of about 15 minutes where A&M's long and lithe front court and switching defenses thoroughly frustrated their opponents on the home floor. At one point, UF made just three of its 21 shots over a 17-minute span that bridged the two halves. The Aggies (13-11, 5-7), after erasing an 11-point first-half deficit, led 40-36 and had the Gators guessing whether a man, 2-3 zone or even a 1-3-1 zone was coming possession to possession. They even morphed defenses during a couple possessions.

"They definitely have a big front court, but I feel like we came together and it was a team effort for us," said Egbunu, whose 11 boards were a season high and paired nicely with his two blocked shots and turnover-less game. "We had slippage at times throughout the first half and early in the second, but then we started to sit down and get stops and really play together."

Yes, eventually they figured some things out. It was a lesson in persistence, if nothing else.

"Coach told us not to worry about the missed shots," Leon said. "He told us just to get some stops and the rest would take care of itself."

Junior center John Egbunu flips a hook shot over A&M star forward Robert Williams on the way to his first double-double (11 points, 10 rebounds) of the season.

After clanging 18 of those 21 field-goal tries, the Gators went on a spree where they hit nine of 11 to climb back into the game. Then they took it over.

"Obviously, they're a really long team," Barry said. "We weren't making shots — and that's the point of a zone — but down the stretch we were able to drive the gaps a little more, space the floor a little more and turn them over some in transition, so they didn't have time to set their zone. We executed down the stretch. That's what won us the game.

A Chiozza free throw, Egbunu post move and baseline floater by Barry gave UF a 41-40 lead and got the crowd back into the game. The Gators, it turned out, were capable of scoring.

A&M freshman forward Robert Williams, a "one-and-done" candidate, did not disappoint the army of NBA scouts in the building on his way to 18 points, 12 rebounds, four blocked shots and three steals. His rebound and stick back returned the lead to the Aggies, at 42-41, at the 10-minute mark. The Gators, though, inbounded and zipped the ball up the floor, where Leon set his feet and nailed a 3-pointer for a 44-42 lead.

From there, two free throws by Chiozza, a steal and run-out slam by guard KeVaughn Allen made it a 12-2 Florida run and six-point lead. After a timeout, A&M guard Admon Gilder (12 points) converted a conventional 3-point play to cut that lead in half. But UF sandwiched a baseline dunk by Devin Robinson (off one of Chiozza's five assists) and big 3-pointer from Barry around a stop at the Aggies' end to take the margin out to eight inside eight minutes. The closest A&M got was six after that.

"We lost to a very good basketball team," Aggies coach Billy Kennedy said of a Florida squad that has hit the 20-win threshold with six games to go in SEC play, plus the conference tournament. "Mike White has done a tremendous job getting his kids to play hard defensively and they have great confidence on the perimeter."

And those remarks came after UF shot just 39 percent for the game and senior guard Kasey Hill, playing as well as anyone on the team, was held to just three points, three assists and committed five turnovers. The Gators, though held Texas A&M to the same 39 percent, while also forcing 20 turnovers — six by burly center Tyler Williams (12 points, 8 rebounds) and five from Williams — and converting them into 20 points. Florida also went 19-for-25 from the free-throw line (76 percent).

The game in no way resembled the preceding LSU, Oklahoma, Missouri or Kentucky routs. It wasn't even along the lines of Tuesday night's performance at Georgia.

But no one in the UF locker room took issue with the outcome.

"You learn from every game. You learn positively and negatively," White said. "When you learn some things about yourself that you didn't do so well, and still come out with a win against a solid team, that's a positive."

As for something the Gators already knew?

"You can't go into a game and expect to just beat everybody by a certain amount of points," Leon said. "College basketball is crazy. You don't know what's going to happen."