Florida Gators
South Carolina
Culture Club: Gators Pull Together For Win at South Carolina
Thursday, January 8, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- About an hour before the game started, news began to leak out that the Florida basketball team had suspended one starter, center Jon Horford, and left him back at home while another, leading scorer Michael Frazier, would be coming off the bench for the first time in more than a year.
Coach Billy Donovan felt the culture he has spent nearly two decades cultivating in his program was being challenged. Donovan does not (will not) compromise his culture.
So the Gators, having demonstrated a flurry of flaws in already losing twice as many games as they did all last season, rolled out yet another different lineup to start Wednesday night's Southeastern Conference season; the 10th in 14 games. All they did was put together the most wire-to-wire inspired effort of the season in a 72-68 road defeat of South Carolina before 12,000-plus at Colonial Life Arena. 
Junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith (dunking right) scored 20 points and grabbed seven rebounds, while Frazier, the junior guard, came off the bench to score 17 points and helped the Gators (8-6, 1-0) to their 22nd consecutive SEC win.
“We stuck together when it got hard,” Frazier said.
That's something this UF squad had not done very well, with five of their six losses coming despite late second-half leads, including a trio of blown double-digit defeats, the latest coming four days earlier at home against Connecticut. In that game, the Gators were a wretched 8-for-20 from the free throw line, including 1-for-6 in the final four minutes. Afterward, Donovan stated his players' problems at the line were all mental.
All? Mental?
Well, in holding off the Gamecocks (9-4, 0-1), winners of seven straight, the Gators were pyschological rocks at the line, hitting 25 of 30 for the game (83.3 percent), 18 of 20 in the second half (90 percent), and a perfect 8-for-8 in the final 43 seconds when USC was scraping together a comeback.
Junior guard Eli Carter sank two from the line with just 6.4 seconds to play after Gamecocks guard Tyrone Johnson (20 points, 5 rebounds) made a 3-point play to draw the home team within two points with 6.8 to go. Carter's free throws made it a two-possession game.
“I just stepped to the line and do what I normally do at practice,” Carter said.
Just like Frazier did with 15.8 seconds to play, Finney-Smith did with 31.2 to play, and senior forward Jake Kurtz did with 43.5 to play.
As good a win as it was, it was really, really needed. Especially the way it played out; against an aggressive opponent on a hot streak, out to end a seven-game skid in the series and looking to pounce a vulnerable defending champion with a lot of questions about itself.
This time, the Gators answered by responding to adversity and doing it all on Donovan's terms; with Horford (along walk-on guard Zach Hodskins) back in Gainesville due to “conduct detrimental to the team” -- their status to reevaluated later this week -- and the team's best pure shooter starting on the bench.
“Obviously, there have been some games this season where we've played pretty well for a while -- in particular, our last game against UConn -- and then kind of broke apart a little bit,” Donovan said. “I think that has a lot to do with our selfishness as a team; and I don't mean selfishness like you might think -- like guys wanting to score and that kind of stuff -- but selfishness from the standpoint of not being able to stay focused on what you need to do when things are not going well for you.”
Billy Donovan huddles with his team, including guard Michael Frazier II, during the game.
Enter Frazier, the poster boy for these traits. With his 3-point shooting down this season, Frazier has often lost focus in the other areas of his game while dwelling on missed shots from two, three and four possessions earlier. Donovan had seen enough.
“He needed to sit,” the coach.
Frazier cracked a slow smile when asked about Donovan's not-so-subtle point.
“I took it as a challenge, really,” he said. “I wanted to come into the game and do whatever I needed to do to help the team win. He wanted to send a message that it's not about me, it's about we.”
With Frazier on the sidelines, the Gators scored the game's first six points, but the Gamecocks hit a couple 3s to tie the score. Then Frazier checked in and instantly scored eight straight points to help his team jump to an 11-point lead before the Gamecocks came alive and got hot about the same time the Gators went cold.
When Duane Notice hit a 3-pointer with 35 seconds to go in the first half, USC had its first lead -- along with momentum -- and began stretching that lead after intermission, inching it to six, 38-32, two minutes into the second half, as UF made just one field goal over a seven-minute span that bridged the two periods.
“They're a physical team and Coach warned us it was going to be a hard-nosed game,” Finney-Smith said. “We had to match their intensity.”
Florida began to inch back. Even though its starting backcourt and two primary ball-handlers were not playing particularly well -- point guard Kasey Hill had seven points, one assist and six turnovers, while Chris Chiozza had no points or assists -- they kept the UF offense moving and in attack mode. 
Meanwhile, Carter played 20 minutes, his most time on the floor in six weeks due to a sprain foot and bout with strep throat, and hit a pair of shots, grabbed four rebounds and dished a trio of assists. Kurtz (left) had eight points and six rebounds. And while the Gamecocks started the night with a plus-9.2 rebound margin that was second only to Kentucky in the SEC, Florida smashed them on the backboards 37-23, including 14 on the offensive glass.
UF's 19-4 blitz, including two 3-balls from Finney-Smith and one by Frazier, turned the game.
“They went 5-for-19 [on 3s], but three of them were bang-bang-bang,” South Carolina coach Frank Martin said. “That was when they made their run.”
But maybe the most glaring (if not eye-opening) part of the game was the deadly efficiency the Gators showed at the free-throw line, having come into the game at 64.2 percent for the season, which rated third-worst in the SEC. They needed all of them. The Gamecocks went 23-for-27 from the line, including 16 of 17 in the second half as they tried to chip away at a UF lead that stuck around six to eight for the final 10 minutes.
USC kept coming, though, and was right there, down 70-68, when Carter stepped to the line.
Guard Eli Carter sights one of his two free throws that clinched Wednesday's game.
Swish. Swish.
Chalk this one up to the coach and his unrelenting way of doing things; of playing the right way; of doing your job. The Gators got away from it all in non-conference play. Instead of kicking themselves over missed opportunities against the likes of Miami, Kansas and UConn, they focused on what they could control and got back to the Donovan way at a very opportune time.
“This was just one game and those other [losses], they don't matter anymore,” Finney-Smith said. “We're looking forward and we're trying to get things back to the Florida culture.”
After all, there is no compromising the culture.
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