Gators Bomb Ospreys With Dose of Their Own Treyball

Tuesday, March 15

Jacksonville, FL

9:00 PM

Florida Gators

North Florida

Dorian Finney-Smith follows through on one of UF's season-best 16 3-point makes Tuesday at UNF.

Gators Bomb Ospreys With Dose of Their Own Treyball

Wednesday, March 16, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- The North Florida Ospreys made more 3-point shots during the 2015-16 season -- 402 -- than any basketball team in the country. The program markets itself as the "Birds of Trey," and for good reason. Coming into the much-hyped NIT showdown with Florida, the Ospreys had double-figure 3s in 26 of 33 games, six times hitting at least 16 and once bombing in 20.

The Gators, meanwhile, hit 15 3s in a game four months ago and reached double-figures from deep only five times during the season; just once over their previous 12 games.

So what in the name of Lee Humphrey happened Tuesday night?

The Gators (a.k.a. the "Lizards of Longball") threw in a hailstorm of 3-pointers -- try a season-high 16, including 12 in the first half -- and annihilated the Ospreys in a 97-68 wipeout before a sellout crowd of 6,011 UNF Arena that sent fans of both teams home wondering if the Golden State Warriors were the guys in the white uniforms.

Florida (20-14) led wire-to-wire, using a 22-6 run late in the first half that featured six 3-pointers, including four straight, to blow a 12-point game wide open on the way to a 32-point margin at intermission.

"As happy as I was at halftime, I was also a little angry," UF coach Mike White said. "I mean, where was that?"

White can only hope a dose of that marksmanship accompanies his team as it moves into the NIT round of 16, where it will face Ohio State (21-13) Sunday at Columbus. The Gators will need their outside touch after White announced post-game that his best inside guy, 6-foot-11, 255-pound sophomore John Egbunu, will undergo season-ending surgery Thursday to repair the torn ligament in his thumb. Egbunu suffered the injury last week, but has played through it with his hand in a brace while waiting for the first possible availability for the procedure.

"I wanted to do whatever I could to help the team," Egbunu said. "I'm glad we got the win."

The UF bench whoops it up as another 3 falls Tuesday night.

Six Gators reached double-figures, including all five starters, with fifth-year senior Dorian Finney-Smith tallying 15 points and nine rebounds, Egbunu carding 13 points and 10 rebounds for his sixth double-double of the season, with freshman guard KeVaughn Allen adding 13 points on 4-for-5 shooting from deep in the first half. Junior guard Kasey Hill had 14 points and five steals, keying a 27-9 edge for UF in points off 21 UNF turnovers.

Florida came into the game shooting 42.2 percent from the floor (9th in the SEC) and 31.2 percent from the 3-point (13th in the SEC), but skewed UNF for 51.5 percent overall and a ridiculous 16-for-32 from the arc, including 12-for-18 (that's 66.6 percent) in the first half.

"Do you want me to write the headline for you?" UNF coach Matthew Driscoll asked reporters afterward. " 'Florida Gators beat us at our own game.' They made more three-pointers tonight than they did in their two games combined at the [Southeastern Conference] Tournament [last week]. It's almost like the basket got so big for them."

With that kind of a marksmanship, it is any wonder the Gators flashed some of their best defense of the season in the opening 20 minutes? They extended their coverage and guarded their men at the 3-point line and were mostly successful at either forcing the Ospreys (22-12) into contested treys against length or making them settle for tough 2s.

"We knew they were a great shooting team and could shoot the 3-ball [from all five positions]," Finney-Smith said. "If they get off for a bunch of 3s, they're going to make them, so we just tried to eliminate shots."

North Florida came in as the nation's fourth-best team in offensive efficiency, hitting 48.6 percent from the floor and 41.1 from deep, a staggering number given nearly 49 percent of their field-goal tries are from the arc.

The Ospreys, though, managed just four on 14 attempts in the first half and shot just 35.7 percent in the opening period, as the Gators went to the locker room up 57-25.

"It was really fun out there," Hill said. "When you're hitting shots like that it definitely gets you going on defense, as well."

Added Finney-Smith: "It was just one of those games where we caught fire as a team. For whatever reason, we defend better when we make shots."

The fat halftime lead quickly vaporized any notion that the regular-season champions from the Atlantic Sun Conference were going to use these oddball circumstances -- second-seeded UF would have been at home, but because of renovations to the O'Connell Center the game was moved to seventh-seeded UNF -- to make history on their campus.

"This isn't the first time we've played a Power-5 team," said UNF guard Dallas Moore (23 points, 5 assists) though it was the first time they hosted one at their cozy home quarters. "I don't think nerves had anything to do with it. They came out and hit those 3s and had 36 points off just their 3-point shooting. We came back and fought hard in the second half. At one point, I think we had eight stops in a row."

Yes, the Ospreys did. They battled to trim the lead to 18 points, at 75-57, with 6:27 to play, but the Gators, who got a little stagnant on offense in the second half (and a little 3-happy after the break, missing nine of their first 10) ran off six straight points to stem the UNF run.

With just over three minutes left, Finney-Smith hit a 3 from the corner (just UF's second of the second half) and lead started creeping back up, as the Gators emptied their bench for the final couple minutes.

With 1:35 left, fifth-year senior walk-on Lexx Edwards, with just one point and no field goals in six attempts for his career, squared up for a 3 in transition and rattled it through.

The Florida sideline went nuts.

"I hadn't seen our bench erupt like that," White said.

"He tends to not shoot it when he gets in because he doesn't have confidence in his shot," Finney Smith said of the seldom-seen Edwards. "Tonight, he acted like he'd been there before."

All the Gators did. It was almost as if it was their home gym. By the look of the scoreboard (and the stat sheet), it pretty much was.