Justin Leon lets fly one of his first-half 3-pointers over Virginia center Mamadi Diakite.
Sleeveless Leon Regains His Touch
Monday, March 20, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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Senior forward Justin Leon had been quiet the last few weeks, but made some noise against Virginia in the NCAA East Region.
By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — During one sequence Saturday night, Florida coach Mike White got aggravated with Justin Leon when his senior forward was out of position on defense in the second half of the team's NCAA Tournament game against Virginia. The Gators at the time had a big lead.
"What is he doing?" White asked.
Hey, it happens. Leon, who transferred to UF from that noted basketball factory of Shawnee Community College in southern Illinois, is far from perfect.
And that was exactly the point assistant coach Darris Nichols made to White.
"Coach, two years ago he was trying to get to the junior college national championship," Nichols said. "Give him a break."
White could only smile, as Leon and the fourth-seeded Gators were on the verge of finishing off a dominating performance in blowing out the No. 5-seed Cavaliers 65-39 in second-round play of the East Region. This time, though, Leon was trying — and succeeding — to get to the Sweet 16 and certainly did his part in scoring 14 points, hitting a trio of 3-pointers, grabbing a career-high 11 rebounds.
Come Friday, when Florida (26-8) takes on eighth-seeded Wisconsin (27-8) in the regional semifinals at Madison Square Garden, he'll be trying to get to the Elite Eight — and beyond — which is quite a detour from Hutchinson, Kan., site of the JuCo national championship. If Leon can come close to duplicating his UVA performance against the Badgers, the Gators' have a very good shot to keep this postseason ride moving.
"I'm known to give my teammates energy. That's kind of one of my roles," Leon said after playing the most complete game of his career on the biggest stage to date. "I guess it was just knocking down a couple shots, but most of the time it's just me playing hard."
Florida senior Justin Leon, minus his T-shirt, speaks to the media following his 14-point, 11-rebound night against Virginia.
Since Leon arrived at UF in the summer of 2015, White and his staff have known exactly what they'd get from Leon on a daily basis, starting with effort on top of effort. After taking Sunday off, the Gators were back at practice and Leon was doing his hustle thing. After practice, he and Devin Robinson engaged in their daily 3-point shooting ritual. Why change up now, right? At times during the 2016-17 season, however, Leon's productivity has popped out of the box score, be it his career-high 19 points against Tennessee or four 3-pointers in a win over Texas A&M.
But in the four-game run-up to facing Virginia, Leon had totaled just 15 points and gone 2-for-8 from the 3-point line despite a team-best 39.3 percent from out there.
As UF sort of staggered toward the finish line, with losses in three of the final four games heading into NCAA play, the Gators got very little from the power forward or "4" position. Leon certainly took notice.
"I don't necessarily know [why]," Leon said. "Coach White told me little things that I could do to fix my form."
So what did Leon do to tweak things?
"I took off my undershirt," he said.
Seriously.
For the UVA game, the white Nike short-sleeved shirt that Leon had beneath his jersey worn all season got tossed in favor of the jersey-only look. UF led 19-17 with just over three minutes to go in the first half when the sleeveless Leon took over and scored eight straight points over 100 seconds, driving left and finishing for a three-point play, hitting a couple free throws after boxing out and drawing an over-the-back foul, then dropping a 3-pointer from the corner that paralyzed the Cavs and pushed the Gators to a 10-cushion.
All it did was start a run of 21 straight points that ended early in the second half when Leon -- known on Twitter at these times as "3eon Leon" -- rained in back-to-back 3-pointers that surged UF to a 40-17 lead.
"We always give Justin confidence to shoot the ball whenever he's open," junior forward Devin Robinson said, adding the players have a nickname for Leon because he's so reliable from the arc. "We call him 'Fifty.' It stands for 50 percent, if you know what I'm saying."
Virginia knows, as Leon went 3-for-6 from deep. East Tennessee State found out the game before, but on a lesser scale. Leon went 1-for-2 against the Buccaneers. That's 4-for-8 for the Orlando regional.
Yep, 50 percent.
And to think, the tournament began with the public-address announcer at Amway Center forgetting to include Leon's name during the pre-game introductions of the UF starting five. Leon even had a sense of humor about it, approaching the PA guy with a question.
"Where am I at?"
And what is he doing?
Winning games in the NCAA Tournament, that's what. And looking for more.
