Gators Shoot 3-Point Blanks in Loss at South Carolina

Wednesday, January 18

Columbia, SC

6:30 PM

Florida Gators

South Carolina

Everything came hard for Canyon Barry and the UF offense Wednesday at South Carolina.

Gators Shoot 3-Point Blanks in Loss at South Carolina

Thursday, January 19, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score Photo Gallery by Tim Casey

UF went 0-for-17 from the 3-point line in its first SEC defeat of the season.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

COLUMBIA, S.C. — After all the emphasis on defense, defense, defense, Mike White took his Florida basketball team on the Southeastern Conference road Wednesday night to face a ranked opponent and got exactly the kind of effort he'd been looking for the last few weeks by holding South Carolina to just 29 percent shooting from the floor.

Unfortunately, the Gamecocks — and the No. 1-rated defense in the nation — had a little something in response, holding the Gators, red-hot of late from deep, to zero percent from the 3-point line on 17 tries.

Repeat: 0.

In a clash of wills (and a multitude of fouls), No. 23 South Carolina prevailed 57-53 over 19th-ranked UF, halting the Gators' seven-game winning streak and leaving Colonial Life Arena as one of just two unbeaten teams in league play, much to the delight of the frenzied crowd of 15,638. Senior guard Sindarius Thornwell scored 15 of his game-high 20 points in the second half and his team was making 19 free-throws to erase a seven-point halftime deficit and snap UF's seven-game winning streak.

The Gators (14-4, 5-1) trailed by three with 22 seconds left and chose to try and go for the quick two-point shot and set their defense. Point guard Chris Chiozza, in for fouled-out senior starter Kasey Hill, was to drive the paint and feed forward Canyon Barry on a backdoor cut, but the two were not on the same page and Chiozza's bounce pass went out of bounds.

Thornwell's free throw at the other end with 16 seconds remaining made it a two-possession game and the Gamecocks (15-3, 5-0) thwarted a couple late 3-point shots — of course, they did — to celebrate a big home win.

"They speed you up and make you panic," UF forward Devin Robinson said of a USC defense that was allowing just 59.1 points per game and a league-low 4.7 made 3s a game and managed to improve on those numbers. "Since we played so hard on defense, our juices were flowing and we couldn't turn it on and off when we needed to."

When the final horn sounded, UF had shot just 35.2 percent for the game, with that 0-for-17 stat from the 3-point line halting a streak of 850 games (a 25-year run dating to a Jan. 11, 1992 loss at Kentucky) with at least one made 3-ball.

"That's a great streak, but it doesn't matter," said Hill, who had 11 points and four steals before fouling out with 1:51 remaining and his team down one. "We lost the game."

Not to mention the streak.

The Gators also undermined any hopes of a comeback by going just 15-for-28 from the free-throw line (53.6 percent) and turning the ball over 16 times, their most since the third game of the season.

Clearly, the USC defense that came in first nationally in efficiency, plus first in the SEC in scoring, field-goal and 3-point percentage, 3-pointers made and allow, plus turnovers and steals, was as advertised. Florida did not score a point (not one) from outside the paint; 38 in the paint, 15 from the free-throw line, none on the perimeter.

"South Carolina plays as hard as any team in college basketball, so no surprise with the intensity level they played with," White said. "I thought we played with a really high intensity level as well. We came in here and held them to 29 percent on their home court and did a lot of good things on the glass. The few open looks that the No. 1-rated defensive efficiency team in the country gives you? You've got to make one or two of 'em."

Just one would have stopped the bleeding.

Who knows what 2-for-17 might have led to?

Instead, backup forwards Canyon Barry and Keith Stone combined to go 0-for-9 after going 13-for-18 the previous two games. Leading scorer KeVaughn Allen, who came in averaging 13.9 points, finished with one point and only took three shots. Allen's body language was so bad, White yanked him with 6:21 to go in a four-point game and didn't put him back until 16 seconds remained.

"I don't know whether he's putting pressure on himself or what," White said. "They did a really good job on him. He's going to continue to be a focal point, but we have to get him back going somehow."

Neither team had it going to start the game — and that's putting mildly. At the 14:47 mark (more than five minutes in), both the Gators and Gamecocks were 0-for-6 from the floor, with five turnovers a piece.

And the score was 0-0.

Eventually, a semi-normal game broke out, with Hill setting the tone with a trio of steals and run-out layups to help stake UF to a 28-21 lead at the break. UF shot nearly 39 percent for the period and held USC to just 7-for-30 from the floor (23.7 percent).

But South Carolina came out of the locker room as the aggressors and began living up to another statistic that finds them No. 1 in the nation: fouls. As many as the officials eventually called (55 total, leading to 62 free throws) they're weren't going to call them all. The Gamecocks were the aggressors and had the Gators on their heels in a 14-2 run to start the second period, highlighted by an old-fashion 3-point play by Thornwell that lit up the building, with UF on its way to missing its first eight field-goal tries and 15 of the first 16.

USC led 48-42 with 4:32 left, but three times over the next three minutes Florida cut the lead to one, only to have the Gamecocks answer. Twice after that third answer, though, the Gators had the ball and a chance to take the lead, but Robinson missed a dead-one stick back and the next time down Barry was called for traveling.

A couple free throws by Thornwell with 52 seconds put South Carolina back up by three, but Chiozza drove for a runner to again make it a one-point game with 40.3 left.

That's when Dozier tossed in his driving layup down the left side of the UF defense.

If the Gators were going to tie it, they'd need a 3, but decided to try a different way. That didn't work, either. Not much did on offense.

"We just couldn't get it going … and it's not exactly HORSE shots against those guys, either. A lot of times you're shooting when you're tired, with guys flying by you," White said. "But we've got to be able — as we've talked about all year — to defend and rebound and compliment that with some shot-making. At times we've been pretty darn good offensively. [This] was the opposite."