Florida Gators
Yale
Effort & Efficiency: Gators Put It All Together in 85-47 Blowout of Yale
Tuesday, December 9, 2014 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- They had rolled to a 26-point halftime lead over Yale, the same team fresh off a stunning upset of defending national champion Connecticut, and the Florida Gators were back on the floor Monday night and ready to warm up for the second half.
For those not keeping score at home, the second half has not been kind to the Gators this season, especially on the heels of that post-intermission collapse at Kansas just three nights earlier when Florida blew an 18-point lead with less than 17 to go.
So that's when UF assistants Matt McCall and Rashon Burno, in their suits and ties, shouted out to the players to line up for some half-court passing and shooting drills -- if only for a few minutes -- the likes of which are normally reserved for pre-game routines.
Why?
“Have you seen some of our second halves this year?” McCall asked rhetorically. “We wanted to keep them engaged and lathered up.”
Less than a minute into the period, junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith hit a 3-pointer, followed by another from junior guard Michael Frazier about 30 seconds later, and off went the Gators on an out-of-the locker room performance equal to the one that started the game. The end result was an 85-47 bombardment of the Bulldogs at the O'Connell Center, thanks to a wire-to-wire shooting display -- 63.8 percent from the floor, including 10-for-19 from the 3-point line -- that was much, much needed, but more so to an energy level and intensity taken to new heights this season.
Frazier scored 18 points, going 4-for-7 from the 3-point line. Sophomore point guard Kasey Hill played a near-flawless game running the offense, hitting all four of his field goals for eight points and tying his career-high with 10 assists versus no turnovers, plus three steals. Finney-Smith had 14 points on 6-for-8 shooting and grabbed five rebounds. Sophomore center Chris Walker had another solid game with 13 points and six boards.
Oh, and senior walk-on Jake Kurtz was 5-for-5 for floor, scoring 10 points and grabbing six rebounds.
“When everyone is involved, it's a lot more fun,” Finney-Smith said.
When you beat the team that just beat the team that beat you in the Final Four last April -- yes, Yale shocked UConn with a buzzer-beater Friday night -- and you do it by 49, that's fun, too. The Gators needed some fun after gut-punched last-second losses against Miami and Georgetown, an embarrassing and lopsided defeat to No. 5 North Carolina, and the Friday meltdown at 11th-ranked KU.
In the wake of that latest loss, Coach Billy Donovan put his team through a pair of workouts over the weekend fraught with added conditioning assigned to players making mistakes. The totality of it all was far removed from anything resembling fun.
But consider the message received.
“I'm a big believer that practice translates to games,” Frazier said. “We really busted our behinds this past week and it paid off tonight.”
UF led just 14-9 at the 11-minute mark of the first period, but began to take the margin out little by little. A 3-pointer from freshman forward Devin Robinson (9 points, 6 rebounds) from the corner, another from Frazier from the wing took the lead to 12. Five minutes later, a 14-2 run was punctuated by a Frazier three, a steal/slam by Hill and stickback from Robinson that made it 41-16 on the way to that 26-point bulge and 46-20 lead at the break.
In the locker room, Donovan referenced the Kansas game.
“We had to play 40 minutes,” Finney-Smith said. "We hadn't done that all season."
With seven minutes to go in the game, the Gators led by 49.
Said Yale coach James Jones: “I think the euphoria of the game against UConn caught up with us a little bit.”
That and a team with a record not indicative of its ability, nor representative of their coach.
"I thought we played to our identiy for our whole game offensively," Donovan said. "When we don't do that, we really struggle to score."
Even Donovan admitted he was shocked when he looked up at the scoreboard and his team had 70 points with just under 11 minutes to go.
Florida had not scored 70 in a game this season.
The Gators also hadn't asserted themselves so impressively inside, out-rebounding the Bulldogs 33-23 and outscoring Yale 52-16 in the paint.
Frankly, they hadn't played this hard, either.
“I wonder if we'd come into the season with the same approach we brought into this game, what would our record be?” Walker asked. “But we're going to put this one behind us and build off it.”
Actually, maybe they should bottle it and take it to the next game.
And make sure to save some sips for halftime.
