'Sweet' Defense: Gators Advance, Smother Cavaliers 65-39

Saturday, March 18

Orlando, FL

8:40 PM

Florida Gators

Virginia

Kasey Hill, Kevarrius Hayes, Devin Robinson

Kasey Hill (0) congratulates Kevarrius Hayes while Devin Robinson plays to the crowd in the final minute of UF's rout of UVA Saturday in Orlando.

'Sweet' Defense: Gators Advance, Smother Cavaliers 65-39

Sunday, March 19, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

UF scored 21 straight points bridging the two halves to blow out UVA and advance to the Sweet 16.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

ORLANDO — Possessions would be fewer and at a premium. Wide-open looks would be rare. The numbers and advance metrics were daunting. Without a doubt, it was a system that could be positively elite to the point it could frustrate and potentially even humiliate.

That paragraph describes the defensive reputation Virginia brought Saturday night to Amway Center.

Ultimately, it described what the fourth-seeded Florida Gators unleashed on the fifth-seeded Cavaliers during a suffocating 65-39 victory in the NCAA East Region's second-round play before a UF partisan crowd of 17,308 that cheered its team into the Round of 16.

Forwards Devin Robinson and Justin chose a good night for two UF players to post double-doubles in the same game for the first time this season, with Robinson scoring 14 points and grabbing 11 rebounds and Leon tossing in 14 points and clearing 10 boards. Backup guard Chris Chiozza had seven points, four rebounds and five assists, as Florida shot 46 percent against a team that allowed opponents to collectively make just 39.6 percent for the season.

The story of the game, instead, was how UF swapped roles with the Cavaliers by holding them to just 17 first-half points, 29.6-percent shooting for the game — including 1-for-15 from the 3-point line — and completely stifled point guard and scoring leader London Perrantes, who went 2-for-10 from the floor and managed just six points, three assists and had four turnovers.

At one point, UF held UVA scoreless for nearly eight minutes, spanning nearly the last five minutes of the first half and first couple of the second.

Meanwhile, the Gators were scoring 21 straight.

"There was a lot of talk about their defense," Chiozza said. "We turned the tables on them."

"One of our better days," sophomore center Kevarrius Hayes beamed.

Because of it, Florida (26-8) has a date Friday night with eighth-seeded Wisconsin (27-9) in "Sweet 16" play at Madison Square Garden in New York City. The Badgers got there by stunning No. 1 seed and reigning national champion Villanova earlier in the day. Wisconsin has a reputation for playing great defense.

So will its next opponent.

"Yeah, that's about as well as we've played defensively," Coach Mike White said after his team yielded the program's fewest points ever in 56 NCAA Tournament games. "We put a lot of it together tonight. I'm really proud of the defensive effort, the focus, the lock-in. Especially when we got up … we didn't have a drop-off, and we've had that four or five times this year. We didn't have it tonight."

No, they did not.

Whether it was Kasey Hill (center) or Chris Chiozza, neither Gator gave Cavaliers point guard London Perrantes room to breathe in forcing UVA's leading scorer into a 2-for-12 shooting night and four turnovers.

Florida led 19-17 after UVA forward Darius Thompson drove the lane and put in a floater at the 5:02 mark of the first half. At that point, the Gators had scored just two points and turned the ball over four times the previous five-plus minutes.

But then Leon, the senior, worked into the paint for a basket, foul and free throw. Thirty seconds later he hit two more free throws. And just over a minute after that, Leon swished a 3-pointer when Chiozza found him open in the corner. Eight straight points in about 90 seconds from a guy who'd scored just 15 over the previous four games.

"I guess it just happened for me today," Leon said.

In the final 46 seconds, it happened for Hayes when an airballed 3-point attempt by Kasey Hill landed in Hayes' hands for an easy layup. After a Virginia turnover, Hill found Hayes cutting to the basket for a dunk at the halftime buzzer, capping a 12-0 spree to end the period and send UF into intermission with a 31-17 lead.

The locker room was jumping.

"We've had games this year where we came out slow in second half," Chiozza said. "As soon as we got in here, we turned the music on, kept our juices flowing, jumped around a little bit. We didn't want to sit down too long. We knew they would come out fighting. We knew they were capable of coming back in second half."

Virginia ralled from 17 down to defeat UNC-Wilmington two nights earlier. The Cavaliers weren't about to do it to this team on this night.

UVA missed its last seven shots of the first half and 10 of the final 11, as Hill and Chiozza swarmed Perrantes while Robinson, Hayes, Leon and even 6-foot-11 backup center Gorjok Gak (6 points, 2 rebounds) made life around the basket difficult for the offensively challenged Cavs.

"I want to tell you, Florida played a heckuva defensive game, and we were very poor offensively," said UVA coach Tony Bennett, whose team was held to its fewest points since a 48-38 regular-season loss to Wisconsin in 2013 and its fewest in NCAA play since a 71-45 first-round loss to the Gators in 2012. "They've got some length behind [that defense]. That quickness up front and that length protecting the rim was very challenging for us and we didn't shoot it well when we got some looks. So that's what happens."

Added Perrantes: "Obviously, the [UF] guards were quick. They got into the ball. But I think it helps when they have, obviously, like Coach said, length in the frontcourt. So if you get by that first guy, you're meeting some athletic, tall guys in the paint. Obviously, when we got some open looks, we didn't hit those either. So they kind of just packed that paint and basically dared us to make a 3."

They would only make one, but didn't make a bunch of 2s, either.

Florida scored the first nine points of the second half, the last six coming on back-to-back 3-pointers from Leon that made the score 40-17 with 17:35 to go, with nine consecutive missed field-goal attempts by Virginia.

"We just locked in on defense," Hill said. "Every huddle, every timeout, that's all we talked about; getting stops."

An old-fashion 3-point play from Mamadi Diakite (9 points, 6 rebounds) gave the Cavs their first points in nearly eight minutes. It also accounted for UVA's first free throw of the game. Six minutes later, though, the lead had swelled to 26, with Chiozza and backup forward Canyon Barry hitting 3s along the way. It grew to as many as 29 with just under four minutes remaining.

Justin Leon sizes up one of his trio of 3-pointers on the night, this one over 6-foot-11 center Jack Salt.

UF sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen had a second straight rough offensive outing, scoring four points on 2-for-10 shooting. Barry, the No. 2 scorer, had just seven. And yet the Gators won by 26.

Others stepped up on offense.

Everyone stepped up on defense.

"I think we just had to get them uncomfortable and play our tempo," Robinson said. "We knew if we played at their methodical tempo, it would have been a tough game for us. We just tried to stay aggressive on defense and get in transition as best we can, and that turned into great offense."

When the final horn soundedd, it turned into a great achievement for the players, the staff and the program. Florida is in the regional semifinals for the 10th time in school history and seventh time in the last 11 years. Oh, and the first time under White, now in just his second season since taking over for icon Billy Donovan.

"It's a group I've been proud of all year," White said. "We might miss some shots. We might mess up some execution. We might have a lack of communication or an error in following the scouting report from time to time or what have you. But this group plays really hard, they play for each other, they play the right way."

And they'll play another game deep, deep in March.