Oh Shoot! Allen Comes Alive in 28-point Outburst vs Arkansas

Wednesday, January 17

Gainesville, FL

7 PM

Florida Gators

Arkansas

Junior guard KeVaughn Allen breaks down an Arkansas defender on his way to his 28-point outburst Wednesday night. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communications)

Oh Shoot! Allen Comes Alive in 28-point Outburst vs Arkansas

Wednesday, January 17, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

Junior shooting guard KeVaughn Allen hit his season high in an 88-73 win over his homestate Razorbacks.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — He'd heard it from his head coach, heard it from his assistant coaches, heard it from his teammates, and probably heard it from his family and friends.

But maybe Wednesday night was the last straw. When KeVaughn Allen and his seemingly season-long scoring slump took the Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center floor for pregame warmups, 13 members of the incomparable Rowdy Reptiles student section each stood and held up a letter that collectively spelled it out for him.

"SHOOTERS SHOOT"

It was intended for one guy.

"I figured it was," Allen said later.

And, with that, Florida's shooting guard launched his jumper and launched himself back in time, and back (in a big way) into the scoring column.

Allen rained a season-high 28 points, bombing in six of his seven 3-point attempts, to lead UF to an 88-73 defeat of Arkansas and help his team to a fifth Southeastern Conference win in six tries. The Allen of the past couple months — a passive, pass-first version unlike the team's scoring leader of a year ago — was nowhere to be found. This Allen made his first shot of the game, a 3-ball just over two minutes in, and chased it by making his next four. By halftime, he had 20 points and the home team led by 15. Midway through the second half, he eclipsed his previous season-high of 23 points. Two late free throws gave him the fourth-highest scoring game of his career.

"Man, I'm so happy for him," said UF coach Mike White s. "He was great, wasn't he?"

Yes, he was.

The Rowdy Reptiles had a message for KeVaughn Allen during the game. He took it to heart.

Allen averaged 14.0 points per game last year, but was floating around 10 per this season, including a pedestrian 6.6 in SEC play. Hence the urging (if not demanding) from all sides for him to be more aggressive.

"I've been listening," the soft-spoken Allen said. "They've been telling me forever to shoot, and even if I miss to keep shooting it."

It took a visit from the home state Razorbacks (12-6, 2-4) to get the attention of the Little Rock, Ark., native. By game's end, Allen had hit eight of 12 field goals, equaled his career-high for 3s in a game, and broken a string of four straight games without attempting a free throw by making all six of his tries from the stripe.

Coupled with previously unbeaten Auburn's loss at Alabama, the Gators (13-5, 5-1) moved into first place in the league standings with some tough ones on the horizon, starting with Saturday night's showdown at No. 18 Kentucky. UF, though, wasted no time looking ahead to that one.

The Allen awakening was too good not to savor.

"We've been trying to get him to shoot it, to be more aggressive," said junior swingman Jalen Hudson, who also was terrific on his way to 21 points and nine rebounds off the bench. "We try to get him to do it even in practice."

Added forward Egor Koulechov: "It was good to see him back."

It was good to see the UF long-distance game back, also. The Gators shot 48.3 percent for the game, but nailed 13 of 25 from deep (52 percent). They came to the gym hot. How 'bout 72-percent hot through the game's first 12-plus minutes to build an 18-point lead. Allen was 6-for-9 in that first period (including a couple long pull-up, tightly guarded jumpers), plus 4-for-5 from the arc.

"I thought he made some hard shots," Arkansas coach Mike Anderson said. "I thought his teammates made some hard shots."

KeVaughn Allen drives for a finger rolle on Arkansas guard Jaylen Barford.

Hudson, UF's leading scorer, was one of those teammates. He was 6-for-12 overall, 4-for-8 on his 3s, and knocked down all five free throws, part of a 19-for-22 display by the Gators from the line (86.4 percent).

Razorbacks guard Jaylen Barford would not let his team go away, though. He equaled Allen's 28 points, doing work inside (10-for-15 overall) and outside (5-for-6). Arkansas shot nearly 46 percent after intermission and at one point drew within nine — 62-53 with 10:48 left — but Allen answered with a 3-pointer and Koulechov (12 points, 8 rebounds) followed with a couple free throws to take the margin back to 14.

When it got to 10 inside seven minutes, the Gators put it away behind two free throws from senior point guard Chris Chiozza, a 3 from Koulechov, and, fittingly, another 3 from Allen to go up 18.

Chiozza finished with just seven points, but dished nine assists and had three steals, helping UF generate 17 points off only eight Arkansas turnovers. Junior center Kevarrius Hayes, after a foul-plagued afternoon in Saturday's loss at Ole Miss, had seven points, six rebounds and three blocked shots in 26 minutes.

But all O'Dome eyes (in the seats and in the UF locker room afterward) were on Allen.

"I hope he stays aggressive," White said. "He hit a couple hard ones that, for most people, aren't great shots. But he's a tough-shot maker. I like to see him like that, and his teammates like to see him like."

Everybody in Allen's circle likes to see that.

Shooters, after all, shoot.

Welcome back, young man.