Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The meltdown at Georgia two weeks ago was bad.

But not this bad.

The Florida Gators fell prey to another nasty late-game cold snap and a run of defensive breakdowns that prevented them from closing out a double-digit lead with less than 10 minutes to go — at home, no less — and allowed the struggling Bulldogs steal a 72-69 overtime win in front of a stunned and bummed crowd Wednesday night at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center.

Georgia forward Yante Maten, who led his team with 23 points and 10 rebounds, hit a pair of 3-point shots in the final 15.6 seconds of regulation — the second a 25-footer with five seconds remaining — then scored the first basket of an extra period during which his team never trailed. UF guard Chris Chiozza's desperation 3-point shot at the buzzer wasn't close, meaning the Gators (17-9, 8-5) were swept by the Bulldogs (14-11, 5-8) for the first time in a regular-season series since 1997.

Want to feel worse?

Georgia came into the game having lost six of its previous seven games, with the one win being the Jan. 30 defeat of Florida when the Gators, during one stretch over the final minutes of the 72-60 loss, missed 20 of 21 shots. That one, though, was pretty much over the last two or three minutes.

This one should have been.

"If you get the ball in bounds, you win the game. If you get a stop, you win the game. If you communicate, you win the game — [and] despite all the mistakes made for the first 39 minutes," a thoroughly exasperated UF coach Mike White said afterward, as his team tumbled back into three-way tie with Missouri and Alabama for third-place in the league standings.  "That's about as tough an ending to a game that I've experienced as a head coach."

Making things all the more aggravating, the scattershot and sloppy performance came on the heels of solid back-to-back wins, including Saturday's 24-point road victory at South Carolina, as the Gators appeared to be coming together and playing harder after a three-game losing streak.

They played hard again. Just not very smart at times.

"The lack of focus and attention to detail is what really hurt us the entire game," graduate forward Egor Koulechov said. "The little things. They caught up with us, especially at the end."

Florida led 50-39 after a pull-up jumper by junior guard KeVaughn Allen (19 points, 3-for-5 from 3) at the 10:03 mark. The Gators, over the next eight minutes, managed one free throw while missing all five of their field-goal attempts and turning the ball over five times. Georgia, meanwhile, took off on an 11-1 run and cut UF's lead to 51-50 on a dunk by forward Derek Ogbeide (10 points, 10 rebounds) at the 3:33 mark.

Along the way, White wanted his team to run some clock on offense and try to get something, else run the risk of a quick shot turning into a transition basket for the Dogs or yet another layup by Maten or dunk by Ogbeide against his porous defense. As it turned, those things happened anyway.
 
Still, UF put itself in position to close out the win. Forward Egor Koulechov (19 points, 6 rebounds) broke the Florida slump with a 3-point play and, after a UGA turnover, bombed one from the arc to push the Gators in front of seven with 1:29 left.

Over the next minute and a half, the Bulldogs hit three 3-pointers against two Koulechov free throws. Koulechov's pair had UF in front 59-53 with 24.6 seconds to go, but Maten's long ball with 15.6 sliced the six-point lead in half.

Florida was unable to inbound the ball agaisnt Georgia's full-court pressure and was forced to call a timeout. The next time, the ball ended up in the hands of junior guard Jalen Hudson (0 points, 0-for-3 from the floor, 0-for-2 from the free-throw line), which was not the plan, White said afterward.

Hudson caught the ball and was called for traveling.

"If we just get the ball in bounds to one of our two 90-percent shooters, the game is over," White said, referencing Allen (.917 from the line on the season) and Koulechov (.907). "After a three-count we were going to bring a third cutter in from half court. One of our guys called the wrong [signal] and [Hudson] became our first cutter. He hadn't played a lot of minutes. That put him in a position he wasn't normally in. An absolute lack of discipline. That's on me."

On its turn, Georgia had no trouble getting the ball in bounds. Or to Maten, who from the top of the key swished a 3-ball to tie the game with five seconds to go.

Florida failed to get an end-of-game shot off, as Allen fumbled the ball and tumbled to floor trying to get in position to let one fly.

"We weren't focused at the end," Allen said. "We made too many mistakes and it cost us the game."

Maten worked free for a layup on the first possession of overtime. UF had a chance to tie at its end, but Kevarrius Hayes made just one of two free throws, which started a disturbing trend. The Gators went just 3-for-8 from the line in the extra period, with four straight misses, including two by Chiozza, who made just two of 14 shots for the game.

"That's not Chris Chiozza," White said of his senior leader's toughest night of the season. "But he wasn't the only guy."

No, there was plenty of blame to go around.

And now there's plenty of work for the Gators to do to flush this from their system.

"We thought we were in a groove," Koulechov said. "Now, we have to go back to the lab and try to get that groove back again."