Aggie-Nizing Ending for Gators in SEC Tournament

Friday, March 11

Nashville, TN

1:00 PM

Florida Gators

Texas A&M

Junior guard Kasey Hill, who led the Gators with 18 points, walks off the Bridgestone Arena floor as time expires in UF's 72-66 loss Friday against top-seeded Texas A&M at the SEC Tournament.

Aggie-Nizing Ending for Gators in SEC Tournament

Friday, March 11, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

UF's upset bid of top-seeded Texas A&M crumbles in final minutes.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- NCAA Tournament teams win their share of games like the one Friday.

Simply put, the Florida Gators have not.

Texas A&M guard Jalen Jones got free for a go-ahead layup with 2:08 to play, then backcourt mate Alex Caruso had a strip steal and run-out layup just 23 seconds later, allowing the top-seeded Aggies to break open a tie game and score seven straight points en route to 72-66 defeat of the No. 8-seed Gators in the quarterfinals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament at Bridgestone Arena.

Down three with just over a minute left, Florida's NCAA life depended on a defensive stop on A&M's ensuing possession that ended with the shot clocking winding down and Aggies guard Danuel House burying a 3-point dagger that all but assuredly threw the Gators (19-14) into the NIT field.

"I'm not going to go there with what happens next," a dejected UF coach Mike White said afterward, his team now 1-7 against ranked opponents. "I don't know."

Virtually every "bracketology" site had Florida, ranked 46th in the Ratings Percentage Index (including 12th in stretch of schedule, 4th in non-conference schedule), on the outside of the projected 68-team field. A victory over the Aggies (25-7), who shared the SEC regular-season title with Kentucky, may have been enough to push the Gators in, but instead they fell to 2-8 against RIP top 50 opponents, with no marquee victories since beating West Virginia, currently ranked 10th, way back on Jan. 30.

So UF's consolation prize figures to be a high seed (likely a "1") in the NIT, but because of construction to the O'Connell Center the Gators will have to go on the road, with speculation zeroed in on a trip to nearby North Florida, the regular-season champion of the Atlantic Sun Conference, in Jacksonville.

"You get what you deserve," UF fifth-year senior Dorian Finney-Smith said.

Added sophomore forward Devin Robinson: "Whatever opportunity we're given, we'll take it and run with it and make the best of it."

House and Jones, the Aggies' leading scorers, finished with 15 and 13 points, respectively, but the two combined to go just 11-for-30 from the floor, as A&M shot only 39.4 percent overall and four of 16 shots from the 3-point arc. The Aggies did most of their damage on the interior, scoring 44 points in the paint -- the most by a UF opponent in five seasons -- with freshman center Tyler Davis, a load at 6-foot-10 and 265 pounds, scoring 15 points on 6-for-10 shooting, grabbing eight rebounds, blocking three shots and getting UF's post players, John Egbunu and Kevarrius Hayes, in first-half foul trouble. Backup center Tonny Trocha-Morelos had nine points, seven rebounds and a block off the bench.

Sophomore forward Devin Robinson goes over the A&M defense for a finger-roll basket in the second half.

For the second time in as many days, UF got a huge effort from reserve point guard Kasey Hill, who scored 18 points, including nine during an 11-4 run in the second half that turned a four-point Gators deficit into a 50-47 lead with just under 12 minutes to go.

"I was just playing hard and trying to help my team as much as I can," Hill said.

He was one of five Gators to reach double-figures in what amounted to a very balanced box score. Finney-Smith had 11 points, nine rebounds and three blocks, with Egbunu adding 11 points and six boards. Forward Devin Robinson had 10 points and seven rebounds. Guard KeVaughn Allen chipped in 10 points. The Gators, though, shot just 38.7 percent from the floor and hit only three of 19 from the 3-point -- just one of 10 in the second half.

But that was only half the story.

"What killed us were our turnovers," Egbunu said.

UF had 12 turnovers (compared to A&M's seven) and several were of the loud variety, none bigger than Caruso's big steal late.

After Hill's flurry midway into the second half, the Aggies bombed back-to-back 3s (accounting for half their long-ball makes for the game) and the Gators never led again. Twice they tied the score, the second time after inching back from a six-point deficit with eight minutes remaining to make it 61-all with 2:24 left on a pair of Hill free throws.

That's when Jones sliced into the post to drop in the go-ahead basket. On UF's next trip up court, Caruso, the league's steals leader, ripped through a hand-off pass that Finney-Smith tried to flip to Allen and took it in for a layup and four-point lead with 1:45 remaining.

"One of our keys of the game -- no live-ball turnovers," Finney-Smith said.

That one came at the worst of times.

"We didn't capitalize down the stretch," Robinson said. "They took it from us at the end."

Took their flickering NCAA hopes, also. Now the Gators, almost certainly, will have to take their NIT medicine -- and like it.