Florida Gators

ATHENS, Ga. — Mike White often references the golden unicorn of every college basketball coach. The "Perfect 40," he likes to say. All coaches seek it. As in the perfect 40-minute game. The notion, of course, is fantasyland. It'll never happen.

The 17th-ranked Florida Gators, though, played a near-perfect 20 on the defensive end in the second half Tuesday night against Georgia, which certainly counted for something. For openers, it was more than enough to go into Stegeman Coliseum and leave with a 72-60 victory over the Bulldogs that ran UF's winning streak to five in front of a crowd of 7,605 that included a solid representation of fans in orange and blue.

And then, about an hour afterward, the UF team was on the bus when it learned Alabama had upset No. 18 and Southeastern Conference-leading South Carolina in quadruple overtime. That outcome moved the Gators (19-5, 9-2) into a three-way tie (with USC and Kentucky) for the top spot in the league standings with eight games to play. It also allowed UF to surpass its regular-season win total of 18 last season and equal its SEC total of nine from the 2015-16 campaign. 

Those 20 locked-in minutes loomed even more significant. 

Junior point guard Chris Chiozza came off the bench to score 15 points and lead four Gators into double figures, but it was the collective effort of a stifling, second-half Florida defense that proved the difference. UF held Georgia to 33.3 percent shooting for the game, including just four field goals on 26 shots through the first 17-plus minutes after intermission to break the game open. Florida also forced 16 turnovers that led to 18 points and blocked seven shots. 

"Everything was contested in the second half," White said. "We finished stops with some two-handed rebounds. And Kasey and Chris were great."



That would be senior point guard Kasey Hill (12 points, 5 assists) and Chiozza, the backcourt duo who combined for six steals and each spent good portions of the night harassing point guard J.J. Frazier and keeping the Bulldogs (13-11, 4-7) from finding any rhythm in their half-court offense. When UGA had UF on edge in the first half, after the Dogs erased a 16-point deficit to tie the score late in the period, there was no panic in the Florida locker room. Only resolve. 

"We just came in at halftime and tried not to think about the run they went on, then just came out and focused on what we did at the beginning of the game," Chiozza said after going 6-for-10 from the floor, with a couple 3-pointers, four rebounds and four assists. "We knew the offense would come from getting stops, getting out in transition and getting some easy baskets." 

To backtrack, the Gators led 30-14 when they suddenly went ice cold. While UF was missing 11 straight field-goal attempts, Georgia was on a 15-0 tear, mostly behind forward Yante Maten (19 points) and Frazier (18 points, 8 rebounds, 3 assists). The score was tied at 33 when Hill hit a jumper at the 1:36 mark that represented Florida's lone field goal in the final 8:36 and sent the Gators into halftime up 35-33. 

"I was a little down with how we handled that second 10-minute segment [of the first half] and Georgia, of course, had everything to do with it," White said. "I thought our energy level dropped a little bit when they punched us." 

The Gators, though, got back in the fight. 

"We stayed poised," said forward Justin Leon, who scored 10 points and pulled a team-best seven rebounds. "It's their home court, so they were bound to make a run. When they made theirs we had to come together and concentrate on making stops, not just home run plays." 

The second-half defense was assassin-like in its efficiency. 
 
Hill opened the period with a driving floater, then Chiozza took an inbound-underneath pass in the corner from Hill and drove baseline for a reverse layup and eight-point lead. UF was up just 41-38 when backup forward Canyon Barry (11 points, 5 rebounds) hit a pair of free throws and followed them with a 3-pointer to take the margin back up to eight. 

A slam dunk from reserve forward Mike Edwards was Georgia's third field goal of the half and it came at 11:28. The fourth, a low-post move from Maten, came at 10:14, and drew the Bulldogs within eight. Then came some scattered Dogs free throws while UF was missing five straight shots, but a 3-ball by KeVaughn Allen, followed by a steal and coast-to-coast finish from Hill pushed the lead back out to 10. 

Georgia did not hit its fifth field goal of the second half until the 3:47 mark, snuffed into 11 straight misses at one point by the flailing hands and arms of UF defenders. By that time, the Gators had run the lead out to 13 and eventually got it to a game-high 17-point lead inside a minute remaining, and the arena well on its way to emptying. 

"Give Florida credit. They're a good defensive team," said UGA coach Mark Fox, whose team looked nothing like the one that shot 48 percent and took UF to overtime in Gainesville before falling 80-76 on Jan. 14, with the Gators having a say in that. "But we have to have more than two guys show up and finish plays. We didn't do that." 

Because the Gators didn't let them do it, and thus another devastating defensive performance was in the Florida books; not to mention a third win in six days, including Saturday night's smothering of then-No. 8 Kentucky in the finest all-around game of White's two seasons. In that one, Florida held the nation's third-highest scoring team to just 66 points, 25 below its 91-point average. 

That defense traveled. 

"I thought the second 20 minutes — the first 19 of the second half — we were fantastic defensively. I'm very proud of the effort," White said. "It was one of our better performances." 

Practically perfect.