Florida Gators
Vermont
Gators Snap Out of it In Second Half
Thursday, November 26, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Mike White spent a good chunk of the previous 72 hours bemoaning the level of competitiveness and energy his Florida basketball team put up against Purdue, one of the biggest and best teams in the country, in a lopsided neutral-site outing Sunday.
He expected the Gators to answer his challenge to show a lot more of everything in Wednesday's home game against Vermont. But instead?
“We came out in a fog,” sophomore forward Devin Robinson said.
That was pretty much the UF form of the first half, but the second was a lot different. Especially the start, as Robinson gave his team a jolt with 12 points in the first five minutes out of the locker room and the Gators went on for an 86-62 win in the Thanksgiving eve matinee before 8,003 at the O'Connell Center.
Senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith scored a season-high 20 points, grabbed six rebounds, dished six assists and had only turnover. Robinson answered his first start of the season with 15 points and team-high eight rebounds, with sophomore center John Egbunu adding 13 points and seven boards.
Junior point guard Kasey Hill fires away against Vermont en route to a season-high 14 points on 6-for-10 shooting. He also had four assists and no turnovers. [Photos by Jim Burgess]
The 40-minute picture wasn't a masterpiece, but White left the O'Dome feeling better than when he started the week.
“I just thought this was by far our most mature performance in terms of offensive and defensive decisions,” White said. “Especially in the second half.”
UF (4-1) led just 34-29 at the break when Robinson, Finney-Smith and junior point guard Kasey Hill (season-best 14 points, 4 assists, no turnovers) accounted for all the scoring in a 16-3 spurt that quickly had the Gators up 16.
“They really came out determined in the second half and got off to a good,” Catamounts coach John Becker said.
Time to relax, right? Hardly.
Vermont ( 2-4), a proud America East Conference program with seven straight 20-win seasons, didn't budge. The Catamounts went on a 12-2 run of their own to cut the lead to six again, at 50-44, with just 13 minutes left.
But back came the Gators with a 10-2 run, bracketed by Finney-Smith 3s on both ends. In between, Hill took a run-out up the floor, went behind his back and laid in a gorgeous reverse layup for the play of the night.
“I'm just trying to get back to being myself,” Hill said. “Trying to be more confident and do what I know I can do.”
Maybe the same can be said about his team as a whole.
A couple players mentioned how some in the Gators locker room were taken aback by the pointed criticism White put to them in the wake of that 85-70 Purdue loss, when the Boilermakers put up the most points against a UF team in regular in more than five years.
Robinson: “I guess it got to some people personally.”
Hill: “We were flat and lackadaisical and all into ourselves, instead of worrying about the whole team.”
Finney-Smith: “We came out a little hesitant. Guys were scared to shoot their normal shots after that tough weekend we had. But in the second half, we just played a lot more freely and our defense gave us the rhythm to help our offense.”
A lot of the coaches criticism was directed at Florida's poor outside shooting to date. It made some guys hesitate when open.
UF shot just 34.5 percent in the first half, but 50 after the break -- after some more talking to by the coaches at intermission about shooting with confidence -- and made six of eight long-distance shots in the second period. Defensively, the Gators limited the Catamounts to 37 percent for the game and had a 26-18 advantage on the glass.
"It was our defense that got us going," said Robinson, who went 4-for-7 from the floor after halftime. "Our defense sprung our offense and gave us energy as a whole. That was when we started to knock down some shots."
If some guys started the game with hurt feelings, maybe they just needed to play their way out of it.
Whatever the case, the 52-point second half had a much better look to it.
“I thought we were tentative offensively, but to our players credit we were playing within ourselves to our detriment,” White said of the first 20 minutes. “We settled in.”
