Florida Gators
Ole Miss
Ole Miss Drops Late 3-point Bomb on Gators
Friday, February 13, 2015 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- This was how Billy Donovan described it.
“He actually shot it from the nose of the alligator,” he said. “Seriously. His heels were on the nose of the alligator.”
When the future Hall of Fame coach has to process another gut-punch loss by describing spots on the O'Connell Center floor emblazoned by the giant University of Florida mascot log ... well ... maybe that's just the kind of season it is.
Ole Miss guard Stefan Moody rose up between a pair of UF defenders to bury a 3-point shot from about 26 feet out -- yes, at the tip of the Gator's nose -- with just 2.7 seconds left to hand the home team and latest crushed O'Dome crowd a 62-61 dagger defeat Thursday night in front of 10,127.
For Florida (12-12, 5-6), the loss was a third straight, but also the fifth by two points or less this season. It was only 19 days earlier that Mississippi (17-7, 8-3) hit two free throws with just under four seconds left for a 72-71 win at Oxford.
Same sort of deal this time, different venue.
Moody, the 5-foot-10 jack-rabbit jumper from Kissimmee, Fla., scored 18 points on 4-for-7 shooting from long distance, while backup guard LaDarius White came off the bench to score 16, but it was the Rebels' defense, which thwarted UF on its final three possessions, that helped set up the Gators' latest nightmare ending. 
“It's frustrating, that's the only word I can think of right now,” junior forward Alex Murphy said. “It seems like it's happened over and over and over again.”
Because it has.
With just seven regular-season games remaining -- and with leading scorer Michael Frazier II expected to a miss at least two more games with an ankle sprain -- reality is settling in. Not that Donovan, now in his 19th season and with 14 straight seasons with at least 20 victories, didn't already have a grasp on the situation a while ago.
“The longer you're in it, you see a lot of ebbs and flows,” Donovan said. “I was really concerned going into the season, just knowing what I knew. This team will have a very, very, very hard time just having a winning record this year. A very hard time.”
That's not to say Donovan was discouraged by how his team competed this time out. Quite the contrary, actually. Minus Frazier, the Gators had to rework the lineup and look for offensive punch elsewhere. They found it in freshman forward Devin Robinson (right), who scored 14 points, grabbed a career-best seven rebounds, dished three assists, blocked two shots and came away with a steal. It was the best game of his young career.
“I was very engaged from the start,” said Robinson, whose six field goals were more than the combined total (5) of his previous four games. “I knew what I had to do. Coach and I, we had a sit-down talk and knew I had to play as hard as I could and utilize the minutes I have.”
He helped put his team in position to win.
Junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith (14 points, 6 rebounds, 2 blocks) hit a 3-pointer with 2:51 to play that nudged UF to a 61-57 lead. The Florida defense then forced a tough, end-of-shot-clock 3-point try on Ole Miss' ensuing possession. The ball caromed high off the rim, but Rebels forward Dwight Colby gathered the offensive rebound and put the shot back in to pull the visitors within two.
At UF's end, senior forward Jake Kurtz took a hard-line drive down the left side of the lane and had a window for a layup, but laid the ball up short at around the 2-minute mark, as the Rebels gained control. The Gators, though, came up with a stop, with Robinson grabbing the rebound with 1:08 to go.
"We put ourselves in position to win the game," Murphy said. "We were right there."
Florida had repeatedly tested an Ole Miss zone that limited the Gators to 34-percent shooting in the second half, just 3-for-13 from 3-point range. On the final key possession, Donovan said it seemed like his players were looking to one another to make a play, rather than playing together. Ultimately, they settled for a late shot-clock 3-point attempt from the left corner by Finney-Smith. A good look, maybe a tad rushed, but it off and into the Rebels hands.
With 18.2 seconds left, Ole Miss called timeout to set up a play. Andy Kennedy said he looked at the scoreboard and thought about a statistic; the one that that showed UF was 11-1 when holding opponents under 60 points.
"We were sitting on 59," Kennedy said.
Coach Andy Kennedy wanted Jarvis Summers, who drew the game-winning free throws in last month's meeting, to drive the ball. It wasn't there. Florida, in an active 2-3 zone, stymied it. Instead, the ball popped back to Moody who was nearly three feet above the top of the key and closely guarded by both the 6-8 Finney-Smith and freshman guard Chris Chiozza.
“It was a great defensive stance by us,” Donovan said. “They had a play on, we took it away. We matched up really, really well. The floor was disheveled [and] there were 3-4 seconds to go. They threw it to [Moody], he took one step and just bombed a shot.”
Up he went.
Down went the Gators. Again.
“Not much you can do,” Robinson said.
“It was a tough shot,” Murphy said. “Give the guy credit.”
Added Moody: “I didn't feel it until it went in.”
Neither did the Gators. And then it hurt.
Oh, there were still 2.7 seconds left, but Kurtz's long pass for Finney-Smith into the UF halfcourt was deflected away, allowing time to expire, as Florida fell to .500 this deep in February for the first time in Donovan's nearly two decades.
Another loss by a nose. Of the alligator, no less.
