Gators Roll as O'Dome Doors Open to Rout of Little Rock

Wednesday, December 21

Gainesville, FL

7 PM

Florida Gators

Little Rock

Florida and Arkansas-Little Rock tip off the first game of the $64.5 million renovated Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center.

Gators Roll as O'Dome Doors Open to Rout of Little Rock

Wednesday, December 21, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score Photo Gallery by Tim Casey, Courtney Culbreath, MacKenzie Meyer, & Kelly Streeter

Florida hit 16 shots from beyond the 3-point line in routing Arkansas-Little Rock 94-71 in the grand reopening of Exactech Arena at Stephen C. O'Connell Center

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Mike White was cognizant of (if not obsessed over) the confluence of events that were meeting Wednesday night. His basketball team's first home game of the season. A glistening new arena. A hyped-up crowd expecting big things. A much-needed holiday break mere hours away. An opponent that may not have been getting the respect it deserved.

He saw it all coming.

What he didn't see (or foresee) was a blistering-hot performance from the 3-point line. But it sure made him feel good.

"I guess I can't complain any more about not making shots beyond the arc," White said after watching the Gators bury 16 of their 31 attempts from long distance in a 94-71 victory over Arkansas-Little Rock that christened the renovated, $64.5 million Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center before a sellout crowd of 10,655. "We got that fixed, right?"

White was kidding. He was also smiling and certainly had the right to. The Gators (9-3) were warned repeatedly about the aforementioned elements building up into one big distraction and wasted no time showing their coach warnings had been headed. The glorious, $2 million center-hung scoreboard had barely screen the opening highlights video when the home team went to work.

UF scored the game's first nine points. Sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen, a native of Little Rock, Ark., scored 13 of his team's first 20 points, all consecutively, including a trio of 3-pointers on his way to finishing 5-for-7 from deep. Junior forward Devin Robinson had a career-high 21 points, going 4-for-5 from the 3-point line. Senior point guard Kasey Hill carded the first double-double of his career with 11 points and 11 assists. Forward Canyon Barry came off the bench to drop in 15 points.

When it was over, Florida had a season-high number on the scoreboard, shot 59.6 percent for the game against a UALR that had held its last five opponents to under 40 percent, put five players in double figures and 12 of 13 who dressed in the scoring column. The 16 makes from beyond the arc fell two short of the school-record of 18.

All in all, a very good night — not to mention an historic one — had been had by all in orange and blue.

Junior forward Devin Robinson enjoyed the new arena setting, hitting seven of 11 shots from the floor and went 4-for-5 from the 3-point line.

"It was great to have all our fans out here to support us for our first home game," sophomore center Kevarrius Hayes, who hit all five of his shots to finish with 12 points and a career-best eight rebounds in his second straight start for injured John Egbunu. "It definitely gave us energy to start the game. Everybody was pumped. We had a home game in our own arena, finally. We took advantage of that."

At the under-8 timeout of the first half, the Gators were up 37-16 and were shooting 71 percent. At the under-4 timeout, they were at 73 percent. When backup point guard Chris Chiozza buried a 3 with just 30 seconds left before the break, UF had a 56-27 lead and had gone 68.8 percent for the period from the floor and 9-for-16 under the dome's new state-of-the-art LED lights.

"It's really bright in there," said Allen, who scored 16 of his 19 in the first half. "I thought it might hurt us, but it didn't tonight."

The Gators got to stare (and shoot) into the new lighting and sample the court for the first time during a practice Tuesday.

"That really helped," said Robinson, who went 7-for-11 from the floor and also grabbed seven rebounds. "It got the 'oh wows' and 'ooh-ahhs' out of our system. We had a basketball game to play."

And play they did.

It wasn't perfect. In the second half, the Trojans (9-4) outscored the Gators 44-38 and actually shot nearly 53 percent, with 6-foot-11 forward Lis Shoshi working the UF front line for 19 points on 9-for-12 shooting, mostly in the paint. At one point, UF scored just three points over six and a half minutes.

Yet, Florida easily stayed above UALR water — a 35-point lead will do that — in shooting 48 percent, knocking in seven of 15 from deep after intermission.

"When you shoot the ball that well, you can get away with some mistakes," White said.

That's something the Gators haven't been able to lean on very often the last three seasons.

"We were locked in, we were focused all week," Hill said. "That's what Coach talked about and I guess that helped us with shooting."

And that shooting helped UF with all the rest of the stuff the coach talked about, starting with the building his team was playing in for the first time.

No, the Gators' shooting hasn't been fixed.

But their arena has.

"It was rocking in there. It was fun, it was loud and our guys fed off of it from the tip," White said. "I thought our guys played with tremendous energy and confidence. Without question, it was a big factor."