Gators Drop Hailstorm of 3s on No. 11 Aggies

Tuesday, January 2

College Station, TX

9 PM

Florida Gators

Texas A&M

Keith Stone hit four 3-pointers on his way to a career-high 18 points Tuesday night at Texas A&M.

Gators Drop Hailstorm of 3s on No. 11 Aggies

Wednesday, January 3, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

UF, led by forwards Egor Koulechov and Keith Stone, equaled a season-high with 17 makes from the arc.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

COLLEGE STATION, Texas — The signs all around town indicated the Florida Gators were in the state of Texas.

But it sure seemed a lot like Portland, Ore.

No, not the city, but rather the brand of basketball the Gators put on display Tuesday night in raining a 3-point barrage on 11th-ranked Texas A&M on the way to a savagely efficient 83-66 victory at Reed Arena. UF equaled a season-high with 17 long balls and put on an offensive show that looked strikingly similar to what it did during a high-scoring run through the prestigious PK80 Invitational over the Thanksgiving holiday five weeks ago.

"It was the highest I've seen our confidence level, offensively, in a while," Florida coach Mike White said. "It was nice to see that look in our guys' eyes when shots were falling for them."

And it was pretty much for all of them.

Grad-transfer forward Egor Koulechov scored 19 points and hit five of six from deep. Sophomore power forward Keith Stone, in his finest all-around game in nearly a year, tallied a career-high 18 points, grabbed five rebounds, and made four of his six attempts from distance.

"He made a difference," A&M coach Billy Kennedy said of Stone. "He wasn't averaging 18 points a game coming in."

No, just 5.8. But Stone was hitting 50 percent from the 3-point line for the season, and improved on that figure, too.

"My teammates have been giving me confidence," said Stone, now 15-for-28 on long balls on the year. "They tell me to shoot it, they believe I can shoot it, so I might as well shoot it."

On this night, they all shot it. Senior point guard Chris Chiozza had 12 points, nine assists, four rebounds and four steals. He also hit half of his four shots from the arc. Junior guard Jalen Hudson made three of four on his way to 11 points. Reserve freshman guard Deaundrae Ballard, making just 17 percent for the season from deep, went 2-for-3.

And not to be overlooked was the inspired, active play of junior center Kevarrius Hayes. He didn't hit any 3s, but against one of the best front courts in the country, Hayes battled to make all four of his field-goal tries, grab seven rebounds, kick four assists and block five shots in easily his best end-to-end game of the season.

All told, the Gators (10-4, 2-0) shot 51.6 percent, including 17-for-28 from distance, good for 60.7 percent, and did exactly what they needed to do against a depleted A&M squad missing its three top guards, but armed with enough firepower from its bigs to make things difficult on UF's undersized front. Instead of going at those bigs, UF shot over them.

In deadly fashion.

Forward Egor Koulechov went 5-for-6 from deep, and has now made seven of his previous 10 shots from the 3-point line the last two games, after going 7-for-37 over the eight games before that. Welcom back, "3Gor."

The Aggies (11-3, 0-2) came into the game ranked No. 3 in the nation in overall defensive efficiency, allowing only 36.7 percent overall and 27 percent from 3. With the 6-foot-8 Stone hitting long balls, A&M had to send its big men, oftentimes 2017 SEC Defensive Player of the Year Robert Williams, out on the perimeter to challenge him, which created space in the defense for Chiozza and friends to zip the ball around for open shots that netted 25 assists on 33 field goals. In the matchup of strength versus strength, UF scored 51 points on 3-pointers and dwarfed A&M's 36 in the paint, thus negating the biggest advantage the Aggies had going into the contest.

"We have so many guys who can put the ball in the basket," Chiozza said. "We just try to get a good shot every time we come down the court. That's something we've really been focusing on the last six or seven games. We've got guys who can make jump shots, but we try to get open shots every possession."

It helps when they're falling from the start.

Though A&M made its first four field goals, the Gators went up 11-9 on a Chiozza 3-pointer barely seven minutes into the game — and never trailed again.

The score was 13-11 when UF took off on a 20-6 run, with four of its eight baskets coming from deep. The Gators led by as many 17, only to have the Aggies trim the margin to nine with less than six minutes to go. But three of Florida's next five baskets were 3s, and from three different guys — Hudson, Koulechov and Chiozza — sending the visitor's to the halftime locker room up 46-30.

"We had times, obviously, in the last month that we've really struggled to see the ball go through the net, as we've worked to try and improve defensively and on the glass," said White, whose team dropped four of five games at one point, but has now strung together four consecutive wins. "We're not there yet, and we're certainly not a great team, but it was nice to see the ball go through like it did."

Try 10-for-16 from 3 in the first half (or 62.5 percent).

They took a step backward in the second half, hitting only 7-for-12 (a mere 58.3 percent).

A&M actually had an 8-0 run to make it a 10-point game inside 14 minutes remaining, prompting White to call a timeout to settle his guys down. It worked. Out of the timeout, Koulechov buried back-to-back 3s on the way to taking the lead back ou tot as many high as 23. And the Gators did despite shooting just one free throw the entire game. Didn't need them. Everything else was going in.

"This was a good confidence boost for us," Koulechov said.

And a good, solid road win.

Freshman guard Deaundrae Ballard scored eight points and dished three assists without a turnover against the Aggies. He also hit two of his three shots from the 3-point line, despite coming into the game making just 17 percent from deep for the season.

Granted, A&M was without those guards. Leading scorer D.J. Hogg sitting was out for the finals game of a three-game suspension, while shooting guard Admon Gilder and point guard Duane Wilson were sidelined by knee injuries. Minus their penetration and shooting skills, UF packed the defense around 6-11 center Tyler Davis (12 points, 7 rebounds) and the 6-9 Williams (12 points, 11 rebounds) and challenged the Aggies' young, mostly inexperienced backcourt players to beat them by making plays or shots. Hayes and Stone had solid games in the post, and got plenty of drop-down help from their teammates on the perimeter. A&M shot nearly 45 percent overall, including 42 from 3, but was never really in the game.

"We paid attention to the scouting report," Chiozza said.

Added Stone: "Our mindset was to make it tough on them, don't let them get easy dunks or lobs or duck us in and shoot layups all day."

They didn't.

Meanwhile, at the other end, the Gators shot and made 3s ... all day.

Like in Portland.