Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Four days ago, they beat Kentucky. Two days ago, they returned to the rankings for the first time since mid-December. They were alone atop the Southeastern Conference nearing the midway point of the season. The Florida Gators were trending upward. Or so it seemed.

Then South Carolina brought the home team back to reality Wednesday night.

Guard Wesley Meyers scored a season-high 22 points, while power forward Chris Silva banged and bodied his way to 18 points and 12 rebounds, as the Gamecocks put a stop to No. 20 Florida's run of momentum with a 77-72 victory Wednesday night at the Exatech Arena/O'Connell Center. For the Gators (14-6, 6-2), the loss was just their second over the previous 10 games, but still dropped them into second place in the SEC standings, a half-game behind Auburn, which routed Missouri on the road late Wednesday.

The manner of the defeat was especially disheartening for UF coach Mike White, whose team took the fight to Kentucky Saturday night at storied Rupp Arena, but was on its heels against the pitbull-like Gamecocks (13-7, 4-4) with the exception of a couple early minutes into the second half.

"Did we have the same edge we had the other day? No we didn't," White asked and answered after losing to South Carolina for the fourth time in five tries, including the season-ending defeat last March 24 in the NCAA East Region championship game at Madison Square Garden. "We're not good enough to do that. Our margin for error is not that big, especially defensively."

And, especially, when it comes to guarding the 3-point line.

Florida came into the game ranked dead-last in the SEC (and 296th in the nation) at 3-point percentage defense (.370). South Carolina, meanwhile, came in ranked 11th in the league with a 37.2 percentage from the arc and averaging just 6.1 long-distance makes per game.

The Gators' numbers won out.

USC went 11-for-21 from deep, and surpassed its per-game average of 3s in the first half by making seven of 12. Myers, the grad-transfer from Maine, went 5-for-7 for the game, with a couple late-shot clock daggers that ruined what were inching toward good UF defensive possessions.

The Gamecocks last 3 of the game came from backup guard Frank Booker with 6:49 left and gave his team its biggest lead, at five points. From there, the Gators just could not get stops on defense or keep the Gamecocks off the free-throw line down the stretch, with Booker hitting four straight free throws in the final 39 seconds to help seal the outcome. From the time Booker dropped his team's final trey to the final horn, not once did Florida have the ball in a one-possession situation the rest of the way.

"They had their way with us," White said. "They beat us in a different way than anyone would have predicted -- they killed us from the 3."

The Gators, in turn, killed themselves from the 3. After surviving a dreadful 5-for-30 effort from the arc at Kentucky (20 percent), they came home and did a 6-for-23 number on the so-called friendly rims (26.1 percent). UF came into the game ranked third in the league in 3-point shooting, so there was very little about this game — at least from the arc — that went as expected.
 
Grad-transfer forward Egor Koulechov led UF with 16 points and eight rebounds, while junior guard Jalen Hudson added 16 more. The two combined to make 12 of 23 shots, but just 3-for-10 from 3. The rest of the Gators hit just 12 of 33 of their field-goal tries and three of 13 long ones.

"We have to get better," Koulechov said. "We can't be a rollercoaster team. Until we lock in and have the same focus every single single week, we are going to continue going up and down."

South Carolina hit its first two shots of the game, both 3s, but the Gators still managed to get on a run and open an 11-point advantage, 21-10, at the 11:27 mark, only to let Myers heat up to rally the Gamecocks to a 39-37 halftime lead.

"Our attention to detail and focus early in the game hurt us," Hudson said. "From the beginning, South Carolina played harder than us and wanted it more than us. They got open looks from 3 that got their guards going."

But Florida came out in the second half and reeled off 11 straight points to go ahead 48-39 and prompt a timeout from USC coach Frank Martin. Out of the timeout, Myers hit the first of two 3s during a 12-3 run that tied the game at 51 with 12:25 to go. The lead changed six times over the next five minutes, with an old-time 3-point play from Silva and regular 3 from Booker pushing the Gamecocks in front 65-60 inside seven minutes. To stay, as it turned out.

"I said before the season that this is one of the best shooting teams, if not the best shooting team, that I have coached," Martin said. "The problem is that when you play in the SEC, the other teams do not cooperate while allowing you to shoot."

Present company accepted. The Gators were very accommodating to USC shooters. 

"When you're not overpowering defensively, you have to play really good scouting-report defense and have outstanding connectivity," White said. "Tonight, every mistake we made, they exposed us."