Gators Give Up Another Lead in Loss at Vandy

Saturday, February 17

Nashville, TN

4 PM

Florida Gators

Vanderbilt

KeVaughn Allen is covered by a couple defenders in Florida's loss Saturday.

Gators Give Up Another Lead in Loss at Vandy

Saturday, February 17, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score

UF led by 11 with 13-plus minutes left, but the Commodores stormed back for 71-68 win.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — So how big a lead do the Florida Gators need to close out a basketball game? Up 17 points with 10 minutes to go wasn't good enough against Duke. Neither was nine with less than five against Clemson, nor six with 26 seconds remaining on the clock four nights ago against Georgia.

Add 11 inside of 13 minutes to the list.

Vanderbilt forward James Roberson scored 26 points and grabbed seven rebounds, while guard Riley LaChance pitched in 22 more, including the go-ahead layup after a rare missed free throw and offensive rebound, to hand UF its latest late-game punch to the gut, a 71-68 loss Saturday at Memorial Gymnasium. The defeat, Florida's fifth in the last seven games, came after the Gators (17-10, 8-6) had leads of 47-36 at the 13-minute mark and 60-51 with less than eight minutes to go.

And just like Wednesday night against Georgia — up by 11 with 10 to go; seven with 1:26 left — the opponent made all the plays down the stretch. All of them.

"It's not puzzling because that's who we are," UF coach Mike White said after losing for a fifth time this season after building a double-digit lead, and for the ninth time this season when leading in the second half. "We've talked about it all year. We're an inconsistent group. The only thing consistent about this team is our inconsistency. Offensively, defensively, on the glass, free-throw block-outs, you name it. We didn't help ourselves."

They got no help from Vandy, either. The Commodores (11-16, 5-9) began the day tied for last in the Southeastern Conference standings, as opposed to the Gators who came in tied for third place and, after losses for both Alabama and Missouri earlier, had a chance to claim third to themselves.

Instead, UF was beaten by Vanderbilt for the sixth time in seven tries, and for the fifth time in the last six trips to the Music City campus.

Sophomore forward Keith Stone led UF with 20 points and six rebounds, while grad forward Egor Koulechov had 14 points and seven rebounds. The Gators played hard. They took care of the ball on the road (just 3 turnovers). They had 14 offensive rebounds. Offensively, though, they shot just 43 percent, made only seven 3-pointers, attempted only three free throws in the second half, and missed an alarming number of "bunnies" in deep.

"Our inefficiencies at the rim continue to haunt us," White said after watching Chris Chiozza, Jalen Hudson, Mike Okauru, Stone and Koulechov all clang makable close-range shots, a couple of them virtually unguarded. "We had a bunch of looks in the paint. If you're going to steal one on the road, we got to make a layup. We got to make a 5-footer through a little bit of contact. You have to make the majority of them, and we made hardly any of them."

The Commodores, meanwhile, shot 49 percent, hit five of their six second-half 3s during a five and a half minute stretch inside the 11-minute mark, and went 22-for-24 from the free-throw line, including 15-for-16 after halftime.

As UF luck would have it, that lone Vandy missed free throw hurt the Gators more than it helped. More on that later.

"We stopped doing things on defense and it all snowballed from there," Koulechov said.

A pair of 3-pointers by Koulechov gave the Gators their 50-41 advantage with 7:50 to go. Over the next 2:18, the Commodores went on an 11-2 tear that included a trio of 3s — part of a stretch of six straight field goals converted — to tie the game at 62 at the five-minute mark.

"They got some wide-open looks and made us pay for them," Stone said.

UF led twice more, at 64-62, and 68-66 after an in-traffic left-handed layup by guard KeVaughn Allen with 2:24 to play. The Gators did not score again.

Vanderbilt guard Riley LaChance raises his arms as the final horn sounds in the Commodores 71-68 win Saturday over the Gators. *Photo by The Tennesean*.

LaChance was fouled driving the paint at the 2:04 mark. An 82-percent free-throw shooter, LaChance made the first, but missed the second. Florida, though, surrendered the offensive rebound to guard Joe Toye (13 points, 3 rebounds), just as it did on a couple free-throw misses in the loss to Georgia. Vandy reset the possession, with LaChance eventually straight-line driving past Chiozza, for an uncontested layup — no defender coming with help — at the 1:46 mark to give the Commodores their first lead since being up 18-16 in the first half.

UF preferred LaChance drive the ball, versus giving him open looks from the arc, but he wound up doing both against a defense that continues to have mental lapses and communication breakdowns, especially late in the game.

"We don't switch guard-to-guard screens. We over-help. We don't rotate," Koulechov said, ticking off his team's breakdowns not unlike how he coach did a few minutes later. "These are things we're taught to do. We do it for 20 minutes, 25 minutes, 28 minutes, then for some reason, we stop doing it."

Still down only one, Koulechov missed a 3 for the lead, but the UF defense forced a tough late-clock attempt, only to let Vandy get another offensive rebound with just over a minute to go. After a timeout, the Commodores ran clock and the possession appeared to go dead when Toye got a pass in the corner with five seconds on the shot clock. UF center Kevarrius Hayes, though, fouled Toye to put him at the line.

A 61-percent free-throw shooter, Toye made both with 12.1 seconds left.

With a chance to tie, the Gators misfired on a pair of 3s, first by Koulechov, then by Allen, as time expired.

With yet another late-game collapse (and loss), time is threatening to expire on UF's postseason hopes. This run of disappointment clearly is taking it's toll on the team and appears to have affected the Gators' mentally.

"I hope it does affect us mentally," White said. "How many games do we have left? Four? We have to figure it out or it's not going to end well."