Gators Put Away Razorbacks for Fitting Senior Sendoff

Wednesday, March 1

Gainesville, FL

7 PM

Florida Gators

Arkansas

Schuyler Rimmer, Justin Leon, Kasey Hill, Canyon Barry

UF seniors (from left) Schuyler Rimmer, Justin Leon, Kasey Hill and Canyon Barry wave to the crowd in the final minute of their game at the Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, a 78-65 win Wednesday night over Arkansas.

Gators Put Away Razorbacks for Fitting Senior Sendoff

Wednesday, March 1, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score Photo Gallery by Tim Casey, Courtney Culbreath, Tamara Dobry, & Kelly Streeter

No. 12 UF led for more than 38 minutes in winning its 24th game and clinching the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — With his team up by 11 and coming to the sidelines for a timeout, Florida coach Mike White shouted instructions to his four seniors.

"Go say thanks," White said, motioning to the orange-and-blue clads in the stands.

His players were confused.

"What do you want us to do?"

White answered quickly, before ducking into his huddle.

"Take a curtain call."

With that, point guard Kasey Hill, forwards Justin Leon and Canyon Barry, and center Schuyler Rimmer, the Gators' senior class of 2017, walked just across mid-court and gave a collective wave to the adoring Rowdy Reptiles, then pirouetted about for all the sold-out Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center to celebrate the final home game for a very special quartet.

Fittingly, they went out winners.

Barry scored 14 points, grabbed four rebounds and a had a huge blocked shot late Wednesday night, while Hill was good for 12 points, including a timely 3-pointer in the final minutes of the No. 12 Gators' 78-65 defeat of previously red-hot Arkansas before a loud crowd of 10,978. Sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen added 12 points and junior guard Chris Chiozza came off the bench to chip in a dozen more to go with five rebounds, as UF (24-6, 14-3) won for the 11th time in 12 games and clinched the No. 2 seed in next weekend's Southeastern Conference Tournament at Nashville, Tenn.

"We left with a win," Hill said of his swan-song performance at the O'Dome. "We did it with my teammates and they'll be my brothers for the rest of my life."

Redshirt freshman Keith Stone came off the bench to score eight straight points during one pivotal second-half stretch when the Razorbacks (22-8, 11-6), winners of five straight coming in, were trying to work back into the game. Stone had totaled three points over the previous six weeks after experiencing vertigo symptoms from a viral illness that seemingly would not go away.

Meanwhile, UF also welcomed back 6-foot-11 freshman center Gorjok Gak from a sprained foot. Gak had played only sparingly during the season — just 40 mostly mop-up minutes and none since Feb. 2 — but scored two points and grabbed two rebounds in a career-high eight minutes. Gak showed his coaches that he could be counted on in a pinch in the post as the Gators look to remake their interior game following the season-ending injury to John Egbunu.

All 10 Florida players scored.

"It speaks to how this team has been all year," Barry said. "On any given night, someone can have a great game. We trust each other. We're a family. We want to keep it rolling."

The seniors got it rolling. White sent all four, plus Allen, onto the floor to start the game. For Barry, the fifth-year graduate transfer, it was his first start in a UF uniform. For Rimmer, a walk-on who transferred from Stanford two years ago, it was the first collegiate start of his career.

"It was definitely a thing that was weighing on my mind, pretty heavily," Rimmer said. "The last thing I wanted was for us to come out together and get us off to a bad start."

Exactly the opposite happened.

The Hogs scored two of the game's first three baskets, but a layup from Leon, then 3-pointers from Barry and Allen, plus a coast-to-coast take by Hill pushed the Gators up 12-6 just under three minutes in.

And then Barry drove baseline and shoveled a pass to Rimmer for a layup.

The five stayed on the floor together through the first media timeout, with each one of them scoring at least one basket.

"We got some early momentum," Leon said.

The Gators rolled to a 16-point lead, at 32-16, with six minutes to go and led 41-28 at halftime after holding the SEC's second-highest scoring and second-best shooting team to just 34.5 percent from the floor. UF, meanwhile, shot 56.7 percent through the first 20 minutes.

"They were more in attack mode than we were," Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. "They were doing whatever they wanted to do. In the second half, I thought we were doing a better job of building a wall and making them shoot jump shots and then have to rebound those jump shots."

The Hogs, in turn, did a better job defending in the second half and keeping the Gators off the glass. Through the first 10 minutes of the period, UF scored just 10 points and Arkansas trailed by just six, thanks mostly to the work of guard Jaylen Barfield (18 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 4 steals) and forward Moses Kingsley (17 points, 9 rebounds) with 9:42 left.

Out of a timeout, Barry drove into traffic and converted a layup. Then, following a miss at Arkansas' end, Hill took off and fed forward Devin Robinson for a transition 3-pointer that gave the Gators five points in less than 90 seconds — for an 11-point cushion — after scoring just those 10 the previous 10 minutes.

Twice more the Hogs closed within seven, but each time the Gators had an answer on their end, with Barry blocking a layup by forward Dustin Thomas with just over three minutes left and Hill following the play on the end with a 3-ball. The sequence was part of six-point run that helped push the lead out to 13 points and ice the game in the final four minutes.

Arkansas, one of the league's better 3-point shooting teams, made just two long balls in the second half and was held to under 70 points for only the third time this season. The Razorbacks were also the 29th of UF's 30 opponents to be held under their season's scoring average.

Once again, defense prevailed. The way White likes it.

"We wanted to send the seniors out right," Barry said.

At the postgame podium, White went down the list of those seniors and tagged them each with a single word he thought best described them.

* Rimmer — Attitude. Despite few game-day opportunities, he focuses on being a great teammate.

* Barry — Sacrifice. He could've gone other places where he would've scored more points (and started), but wanted to be part of something special.

* Leon — Toughness. Blue-collar kid who refuses to be outworked.

* Hill — Perseverance. A roller-coaster ride of a four-year career will culminate with him playing his best basketball as the unquestioned leader of an NCAA Tournament team.

"We can play and use our depth and hold each other accountable because of the culture and unselfishness these guys play with," White said of his seniors. "These guys exemplify a lot of things."

And were worthy of a bow.