TUSCALOOSA, Ala. -- No one will ever know what sort of night Florida center Patric Young would have had against a fully stocked Alabama team.
But one thing UF coach Billy Donovan does know, is the reason Young was so dominant in Tuesday night's 61-52 road win over the Crimson Tide was because of the way his 6-foot-9, 255-pound sophomore prepared after the Gators suffered back-to-back losses last week for the first time this season, including a deflating home defeat three days earlier against Tennessee.
Young converted nine of his 12 field-goal attempts on the way to a game-high 19 points against the Tide, including half of a 16-point UF blitz to tip off the second half and lead the Gators (20-6, 8-3) to key Southeastern Conference victory and lock up the program's 14th straight 20-win season along the way.
“For Patric, this was a total byproduct of the way he prepared for two days. He had two of his better practices,” said Donovan, whose active run of 20-win seasons is bested only by Kansas (23 years), Duke (16), Gonzaga (15) and Syracuse (15). “He really did a good job of dealing with fatigue, being tired and playing a lot of minutes. For him, it's so mental. He played 36 minutes against Tennessee, so you'd think that coming back and practicing Sunday he would be exhausted. He was great in practice Sunday.”
Great against the Crimson Tide, too.
He had help, of course.
Freshman guard Brad Beal scored 14 points and grabbed eight rebounds, while junior forward Erik Murphy added 14 more points on 4-for-8 long-range shooting, plus five rebounds and four steals. And though the backcourt of Kenny Boynton and senior point guard Erving Walker struggled from the floor -- a combined 3-for-14 after missing their first eight shots -- Walker finished the game with seven assists, giving him 505 for his career and breaking the school record of 503 formerly held by Ronnie Montgomery (1985-88).
“It's an honor,” Walker said. “But really I'm just glad we won.”
Especially after the rough two-game stretch the team had last week, getting blown out by 20 at No. 1-ranked Kentucky, then falling at home to Tennessee, a loss that snapped the school's 19-game home winning streak.
After that game, Donovan challenged his players to recommit themselves, starting with higher energy and focus at practice. Apparently, they responded.
Young took to heart a coaching tip the staff threw at him during that stellar Sunday workout.
“Coach Donovan said, 'I've got a new rule for you,' “Young explained. “He said, 'Every time you're on the pick-and-roll, I want you to sprint to the halo, watch for the ball, be fearless and don't worry about running into anybody.' ... When I turned back and called for the ball, they weren't able to stop me. I got a few lobs, a few duck-ins. Just went strong.”
There was one 2 1/2-minute stretch when his strength was powerfully evident to everyone among the 12,187 inside Coleman Coliseum. Fortunately for the Gators, it happened to come during the most pivotal stage of the game.
After a deadlocked first half.
The score was tied 26-all at the break after UF shot just 30.8 percent from the floor and continued its SEC-play issues from the 3-point line, making just 3-12 through the first 20 minutes. Meanwhile, the Tide (16-8. 5-6), even with forwards and leading scorers JaMychal Green and Tony Mitchell suspended for disciplinary reasons, hit nearly 59 percent (10-17) of their shots, including 3-for-5 from the arc, yet were locked up on the scoreboard, thanks in great part to 11 first-half turnovers.
“Really, the message at the half was we had to guard,” Murphy said. “We were playing well offensively, but the shots weren't going in. So we just had to come and try to get some stops. We thought with the good looks we were getting, they'd start falling eventually.”
So out of the break, the Gators got a stop to start the second half. And practically on cue, Murphy rained a 3-pointer to give the Gators the lead. Then came a steal by Murphy and pass into the post for a Young dunk. Then came another Tide miss and a Murphy rebound that turned into a Boynton 3-pointer in transition.
Timeout, Bama.
The Tide should have stayed on the sidelines.
The next four possessions were misses by the home team and makes by the visitors, with Young going beast mode on the block for two more dunks and a layup in succession, and Boynton bombing another trey for a 42-26 lead before Alabama had even scored a basket out of the break.
“They just started making their shots,” said guard Andrew Steele, who led the Tide with 11 points. “And we weren't making ours.”
In fact, the Tide missed their first 10 field goal attempts of the second half on the way to going 8-for-28 overall (28.6 percent) and 1-for-11 from distance (9.1 percent). They were even 12-for-24 for the game from the free-throw line.
After the Gators built that 16-point cushion barely five minutes out of the locker room, the closest Alabama got was nine.
“It was an ugly game in a lot of respects,” Donovan said. “Let's realize Alabama was playing without their two leading scorers.”
So were the Gators, who were minus their two top reserves in forward Will Yeguete (concussion) and guard Mike Rosario (hip pointer). Granted, the tradeoff between those two versus Green and Mitchell was lopsided, but that's where their respective two seasons happened to come together, unfortunately for Tide coach Anthony Grant, the former UF assistant and one Donovan's best friends.
"We've got to get better as a team. We've got to make sure that our guys understand that,” Grant said. “We're getting hit in the face with reality right now. How do we respond to that?”
Donovan isn't dealing with the issues Grant is right now, but adversity presents itself in many ways.
Players respond in different ways, too.
“At halftime we talked about coming out with great energy," Young said. "I thought I had an opportunity to give our team some juice.”
He'll have other such opportunities -- all of the Gators will -- when the team reconvenes Thursday. For practice. That's where the coach says it has start.
Someone was listening.
