By Chris Harry
Contributing Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- The game was close five minutes into the second half when Florida State's 6-foot-10 power forward Bernard James came off a pick and roll and was wide open for an easy layup on the right side of the basket.
That's the kind of night it had been in 63rd meeting between rivals Florida and FSU. Back and forth. Spurts by both teams. Gators looking like they were about to pull away, but the Seminoles making a play and keeping things tight.
Back to James, who launched his 240 pounds and 8-foot wingspan toward the basket.
Enter Patric Young.
UF's 6-9 center came over with help defense, skied at James. shooting hand and not only blocked the shot, but ripped it from James' hand all in one motion.
Steal? Blocked shot? Maybe both. The official scorer was left to decide. Either way, the highlight-reel play turned into a transition opportunity, with Florida missing a 3-point shot, but forward Will Yeguete grabbed the offensive rebound and dropped the ball to Young for a crazy slam dunk that ignited the home crowd and fueled a 15-2 run that may have been the most furious, efficient and inspiring minutes of basketball in this still-young UF season.
That Seminoles defense that was supposed to be one of the best in the country was the second-best in the O'Connell Center Thursday night, as the 11th-ranked Gators used stifling energy to overwhelm their rivals to the west for an 82-64 victory in front of a crowd of 11,125.
UF was the first FSU opponent to score at least 80 points this season -- and the first over the previous 24 games, dating to a Feb. 6, 2011 road loss at North Carolina. The Gators poured in 50 points in the second half.
Freshman forward Bradley Beal scored 21 points, Young tossed in 15 on a perfect 7-for-7 from the floor and the Gators (10-2) placed all five starters in double-figures and shot a collective 48.3 percent against the Seminoles (8-4), who came in ranked third in the country in field-goal percentage defense (34.2) and were allowing opponents less than 58 points per game.
But to a man, Florida's players were more eager to talk about the points they prevented Thursday rather than the ones they scored.
“We wanted to come in with the mindset that we're the best defensive team out here,” Young said. “We don't get much credit for our defense because our offense has been so great this year, but we wanted to show from the get-go that they weren't going to get anything easy, that we were going to be physical and they weren't going to get anything easy.”
For the offensively challenged Seminoles, scoring is never easy. They shot 40.7 percent for the game, but the Gators forced 19 turnovers, equaled their taller opponent on the boards (35 rebounds each) and disrupted FSU enough in the halfcourt to limit the Seminoles to just nine assists.
“There was a lot of talk [going into] the game where it was almost like, OK, who's going to win out? Our offense or their defense?” Gators coach Billy Donovan said. “But I felt the key to the game was how well we could defend and rebound. I told our guys the game's not coming down to whether they can stop us. It'll come down to how well we guard.”
They guarded well from the start. FSU opened the game by making just one of its first 13 shots and fell behind 14-2 before finding any facsimile of a rhythm.
The Seminoles closed to within one, but the Gators reopened the lead to nine. Twice FSU trimmed it to two early in the second half, the second time on a steal and conventional 3-point play by guard Michael Snaer that made it 38-36 barely three minutes into the second half.
But Beal answered with an old-fashion 3-pointer of his own and Erving Walker (11 points, 7 assists) knocked down a couple free throws to push the lead back to six.
Then came Young's ridiculously athletic play.
“I was like, man,” said junior guard Kenny Boynton, who had 14 points, three assists and a pair of steals. “I'm glad I was on the bench when he did that so I could really appreciate it.”
Added Young: “I can't wait to see that on the [ESPN] Top 10. When you block a guy's shot and pull it down with one hand, you definitely have to make SportsCenter.”
Young was rewarded at the other end with the feed and dunk and Yeguete stuck back his own miss a possession later. FSU's Ian Miller broke the run with a driving floater, but Beal went baseline for a raucous two-handed slam and rained in a 3-pointer the next time down to open up a 53-38 lead, completing that 15-2 run that featured five UF steals.
"They just laid it on us," said senior guard Luke Loucks, who led FSU with 15 points on 6-for-11 shooting. "Usually, in a rivalry game, you get a 6-0 or 8-0 run and you have to get it together. But for some reason, we just couldn't stop them."
The Seminoles, with their lack of firepower, weren't about to recover.
“This Florida team is the most difficult team for us to beat at least since I've been here,” said Seminoles coach Leonard Hamilton, now in his 10th season in Tallahassee. “They play so well together. They execute their system almost to perfection. You have very little room for error.”
The Gators got another solid performance from forward Erik Murphy (12 points, 6 rebounds) in his third game back in the starting lineup since returning for a knee bruise and also got some quality minutes -- especially with on-ball defense -- from sophomore guard Scottie Wilbekin, who hit both shots he took (including a 3-pointer) and had three rebounds in 19 minutes.
“Our biggest thing with playing Florida State was let's make sure we get our defense in the game,” UF assistant John Pelphrey said. “We didn't have their defensive numbers, but we weren't bad and we figured we if got our defense going and we could rebound and fast break then their defense could not get set.”
Donovan put it even more succinctly.
“I told our guys we had to overwhelm them with great energy,” he said.
With that, came some great individual plays. At least one (See Young, Patric) better than all the rest. Even Hamilton said so.
“He made an aggressive play,” Hamilton said. “As good of a play as I've seen this year.”
It changed the game. Certainly something to build on.
