Defense Optional in Record-Setting 114-95 Win at Auburn

Tuesday, February 14

Auburn, AL

7 PM

Florida Gators

114

Auburn

UF forward Canyon Barry (24) scored of drives, 3-pointers and made a living at the free-throw line on his way to a season-high 30 points.

Defense Optional in Record-Setting 114-95 Win at Auburn

Wednesday, February 15, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

Fifth-year senior Canyon Barry scored a season-high 30 points and the No. 15 Gators set a record for points in an SEC game.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

AUBURN, Ala. — During their winning run of the last few weeks, the Florida Gators have excelled by choking opponents with suffocating defense. Six straight games (and wins) of holding teams to 15 points below their combined scoring averages and nearly eight points below their average shooting percentages.

So imagine the scene on the UF sideline Tuesday night when Auburn, tied for eighth place in the Southeastern Conference, had zapped the No. 15 and league-leading Gators for 30 points in barely eight minutes, including four 3-pointers in five attempts.

"They came at us," UF junior forward Devin Robinson said. "We had to get focused because they were going to go for 150 if we didn't settle down on defense."

The Tigers didn't go for 150. Not even close. That's because the Gators did settle down, if that notion seems even possible during what resembled a visit back to the old ABA days at Auburn Arena, where UF flipped the scoring switch on the home team and blew up the scoreboard in a 114-95 victory that set a Florida record for most points ever tallied in a Southeastern Conference game.

Fifth-year graduate transfer Canyon Barry dropped a season-high 30 points to lead seven UF players into double-figures on a night the Gators (21-5, 11-2) won their seventh straight and remained in a tie atop the SEC standings, but also watched starting center John Egbunu leave the game in the first half with an injured left knee. Egbunu, who had 10 points and four rebounds when he got hurt, will undergo an MRI Wednesday to determine the severity of the injury.

"We're hoping for the best," UF coach Mike White said. "He's very important to the Gators."

Senior point guard Kasey Hill had the second double-double of his career with 10 points and a career-high 12 assists. Sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen had 17 points. Robinson went for 14 points and six rebounds. Senior forward Justin Leon had 10 points and eight rebounds. As a team, UF scored 64 points in the second half and went 37-for-42 from the free-throw line (88.1 percent) in a game where 53 fouls were called and 81 free throws attempted.

We could go on.

Auburn, which started four freshmen, put six guys in double figures, but the Tigers (16-10, 5-8), who had the game deadlocked 50-all at the break, allowed the Gators to shoot 57.9 percent for the game and make 11 of 19 shots from the arc (57.9 percent). It was the most points Auburn had given up in 25 years and the third straight game it surrendered 60-plus points in the second half.

Said Tigers coach Bruce Pearl: "Most of the guys in that locker room are better offensively than defensively."

Exactly no one would argue that.

And yet the Gators, one of the nation's leaders in defensive efficiency, had plenty to pick at afterward relative to how they guarded.

"We have to get back to playing better defense," Barry said after coming within one point of his career-high of the 31 points he tallied against Davidson last season as a junior at College of Charleston. "Luckily, we were able to make shots in the second half and outscore them, but that's not Florida basketball. We hang our hats on defense and stopping people and getting out in transition."

Against the Tigers, the Gators had to settle for just the transition part.

Auburn came in as the No. 3 scoring team in the SEC (80.0 points per game). On the first possession, Danjel Purifoy was fouled making a 3-point shot to go ahead 4-0 just nine seconds in. Eight minutes later, the Tigers led 32-24 and were 5-for-6 from the 3-point line.

"They want to go up and down and get as many shots as they can," Robinson said. "They do a pretty good job at it."

But the Gators took off on an 11-0 run to retake the lead and after that went back and forth over the final nine minutes of the period and headed to the locker room locked up at 50. Along the way, UF lost Egbunu (3-for-3 from the floor; 4-for-4 from the free-throw line) at the 9:44 mark, while Barry kept his team in it almost singlehandedly by scoring 19 points.

"It was a weird tempo the entire game, with the amount of fouls being called on both teams at both ends," said Barry, who went 8-for-17 from the floor and 11-for-12 from the free-throw line, with his school-record run of consecutive made free throws halted at 41. "But we settled down in the second half, came out pretty well and got a couple stops in a row to get us going."

Florida scored its first four possessions of the period and stopped Auburn on its first three. The 9-0 run, started with a blow-by drive from Barry and capped by a transition 3-pointer from Chris Chiozza, was exactly what the visitors needed.

When Hill dropped off a pass for a walk-up trey by Leon at the 12:29 mark, the Gators' lead was 14 and on its way to 18 three minutes later. The Tigers, meanwhile, made just one of 15 shots from beyond the 3-point arc over the final 31-plus minutes after that red-hot 5-for-6 start.

"We stopped letting them shoot 3s and tried to take away their rhythm. They were getting too comfortable with their shots, pulling up from everywhere and getting confidence," Robinson said. "We started sitting down [on defense] and running them off the 3-point line."

All the while scoring in bunches.

Florida reached 100 points with 5:22 to play and surpassed its season high of 106 (hit Jan. 25 at LSU) with 2:34 to go. When the Gators hit 108, it marked the program's most points scored in a game over 84 years of SEC basketball, passing the 107-104 double-overtime win at Mississippi State on Feb. 3, 1975.

Auburn, meanwhile, shot 45.5 percent in the second half and scored 45 points. Probably good enough to win on a lot of nights.

But not on this night, not against this team.

"Nuts. Just nuts. It was just an odd game. Outside of early in the second half, we could never find a defensive rhythm," White said. "They're just difficult to defend. Good thing for us it was one of those nights where we made a bunch of shots and a bunch of free throws and found a way; obviously, a different way than we won any game last year."

This game wasn't like any last year. Or any in a long time.