Embracing the NIT: Postseason Run Rolls Over Buckeyes

Sunday, March 20

Columbus, OH

12:00 PM

Florida Gators

Ohio State

Kasey Hill goes up and under for a nifty reverse layup and two of his 15 points against Ohio State.

Embracing the NIT: Postseason Run Rolls Over Buckeyes

Sunday, March 20, 2016 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

UF never trailed and placed four players in double-figures Sunday to oust host Ohio State.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- No college basketball team reports for a season with a trip to the National Invitational Tournament as its end-game objective. That's just reality. But long as we're keeping it real, the NIT is exactly where the Florida Gators find themselves three weeks into March.

They're also still alive.

"As long as we're in it, might as well try to win it," sophomore point guard Chris Chiozza said.

UF took another step in that direction Sunday, jumping out to an early double-digit lead on host Ohio State and leading from start to finish in a 74-66 defeat of the Buckeyes in second-round NIT play before 8,185 at Value Center Arena. Senior forward Dorian Finney-Smith led four teammates into double-figure scoring with 16 points and 12 rebounds, for his seventh double-double of the season, while junior point guard Kasey Hill tallied 15 points and five assists.

Freshman Kevarrius Hayes, starting in place of center John Egbunu following season-ending surgery on his thumb last week, hit all five of his field goals to finish with a career-high 14 points, while backup forward Justin Leon had 12 points and seven rebounds in 17 ultra-efficient minutes.

The season goes on.

"We all like playing basketball. We all like each other. So this is an opportunity for all of us to keep playing together," Finney-Smith said. "Even though we didn't reach our ultimate goal, that doesn't mean we're not going to try to take advantage of whatever basketball we have left."

That would be at least one game. And this one will have a nice carrot dangling on the back end.

Wednesday night, the Gators (21-14) will play either Monmouth (27-7) and George Washington (24-7) on the road -- those two play Monday night -- with the winner advancing to the NIT semifinals next week at Madison Square Garden in New York City.

"We had our chance to get to the NCAA Tournament, but didn't do it," sophomore forward Devin Robinson said after scoring four points, while grabbing eight rebounds and dishing four assists. "We want to prove to people we're still a good team that will compete."

They competed better than the Buckeyes (21-14), who came out flat in missing their first five field-goal attempts while the Gators scored the game's first nine points and eventually jumped to a 12-point lead barely five minutes in. UF hit 10 of its first 17 shots and led 31-21 after Chiozza drove the OSU defense for a layup with three minutes to go in the half.

This Florida team had a different look about it, yet a similar one to the version that annihilated North Florida by 29 on the road five days earlier.

"The NIT is a unique situation because is an emotional time of the year for the teams involved," said UF coach Mike White, pounding home the point that most programs have to navigate -- and play through, if not block out -- the disappointment of not reaching the NCAA to have success in the second-tier tournament. "It's crazy. We haven't been as sharp the last couple of days at practice like we were leading up to North Florida, so the way we started was a bit of a surprise."

That the Gators, a sub-par shooting team most of the season, went cold wasn't so surprising. While Florida missed its last six shots of the half, the Buckeyes scored the final nine points of the period to close within one at the break and get the crowd back in the game.

But just like in the game's opening minutes, UF shot out of the locker room in the second half by scoring 14 of the initial 16 points of the period -- the first on buckets courtesy of Hayes -- to jump in front by 13 and built the margin to as high as 16 with 10 minutes remaining.

The Buckeyes got within seven three times in the final 4 1/2 minutes, but on each occasion the Gators had an answer; first on a 3-pointer by Hill, who went 7-for-13 from the floor, with 4:08 left; next on a 3-ball from Finney-Smith with 1:35 to go; and again on two free throws by Chiozza (6 points, 3 assists) with 1:06 remaining.

Finney-Smith iced the outcome with four free throws in the closing minute.

Overall, UF wasn't smoking-hot like it was in hitting 12 of 20 3-pointers at UNF -- the Gators were just 6-for-19 from deep against OSU -- but the team drove and passed the ball well enough and took advantage of 16 offensive rebounds to make 45.3 percent overall, while defending the Buckeyes at 39-percent efficiency, including just 6-for-22 from deep.

"As long as we talk and communicate, we tend to do pretty well," Hayes said.

They'll have a couple more days -- and at least one more game -- to hone those things.

Afterward, White explained he and the UF staff had scaled back on some things offensively the last several weeks and given the players some more freedom, the benefits of which seem certainly to be impacting Hill, who is on a four-game tear.

As far as being the NIT, he's encouraged his guys to play both loose, play confident and see what happens. It's working.

"We continue to improve incrementally offensively," White said. "We'd rather have made this improvement a month ago, but I'm proud we're still fighting, getting better each and every day and taking advantage of our NIT opportunity."

Why not? It's what they have.

"We're trying to build the program back up," Chiozza said. "Last year, we weren't in any tournament, so winning in this one is a good place to start."