Point guard Chris Chiozza is off and out in transition in UF's win Thursday night over St. Bonaventure at the NCAA Tournament in Dallas. (Photo: Tim Casey/UAA Communication)
Gators' Defense Smothers Bonnies in 77-62 Rout
Friday, March 16, 2018 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
UF held St. Bonaventure scoreless on its first seven possessions of the second half to open a big lead.
In the halftime locker room, Coach Mike White challenged his players to maintain their energy and edge on the defensive end, reminding them those traits had failed the team during some second halves over the course of this season. White also made a couple subtle adjustments to throw at an SBU zone that had mostly frustrated his shooters over the period's final 10 minutes.
"We talked about staying the course," White said. "Those first four minutes of the second half, defensively, had to be as good as the first 20 minutes of the game."
They were.
Actually, they were better.
Graduate forward Egor Koulechov scored 20 points and grabbed six rebounds, guard Jalen Hudson tallied all but three of his 16 points after halftime, and senior point guard Chris Chiozza was near-flawless in an 11-assist, 0-turnover virtuoso performance, as the Gators summoned a relentless defensive display to wax the Bonnies 77-62 in second-round NCAA Tournament East Region play Thursday night at American Airlines Center. The win moved sixth-seeded UF (21-12) into the round of 32 and a date against third-seeded Texas Tech (25-9), which defeated 14-seed Stephen F. Austin 70-60 in a game that was far closer than the final score. The Gators and Red Raiders will play Saturday night at 8:40 ET, with the winner advancing to the Sweet 16 next weekend in Boston.
"We've got to be prepared for a hostile environment, obviously. We're in Texas," Koulechov said after hitting eight of his 17 shots, including 4-for-10 from the 3-point line. "We saw they have a lot of crowd here, but we're going to do our best, treat it as every other game this year, lock in on our end, try to defend at a high level [and] get a good scouting report in."
Those items were on the checklist that worked against the Bonnies (26-8), who showed some signs of fatigue after surviving Tuesday night's "play-in" game at Dayton, Ohio, where they beat UCLA -- and celebrated the program's first NCAA win since 1970 -- then had to zip down to Texas early Wednesday morning to begin prepping for the Gators.
"We were a little gassed. You could tell," said SBU guard Jaylen Adams after playing a fourth game over seven days in three cities, including the Atlantic 10 Conference Tournament in Washington last weekend. "We weren't used to that many games in that many days."
They never got used to the Florida defense, either.
From the outset, the Gators were sensational in that facet, with Chiozza and junior guard KeVaughn Allen locked to both Adams and fellow first-team All-Atlantic 10 guard Matt Mobley. The duo came in averaging a combined 38 points and both well over 40 percent from 3. Against UF, they totaled 21 points, hit just five of 18 shots and went 1-for-12 from deep.
"We wanted to make it tough on them to score," Chiozza said. "We didn't want them to hit some stuff early and get it going."
That didn't happen, not even close. A few seconds after UF sophomore forward Keith Stone (9 points, 8 rebounds, 3 blocks) hit a 3 to put the Gators up 11, Adams was hit with his third foul of the first half at the 10:14 mark, and went to the bench with three points. The Gators were leading 20-9 at the time.
They proceeded, however, to score only one point over the next eight minutes, while the Bonnies went on a 13-1 run to go ahead 22-21 with just over three minutes left before halftime.
If backup guard Mike Okauru (7 points) and Koulechov hadn't banged in back-to-back 3s to push UF back in front 27-22, and wrap the halftime scoring, who knows what the mood would have been like in the Florida locker room?
It was pretty good on St. Bonaventure's side, considering.
"I thought being down five at halftime was a moral victory," said SBU coach Mark Schmidt, whose team hit just six of 23 shots and had six turnovers at the break. "The first 10 possessions of the second half were going to be critical."
The opposing coach was thinking the exact same thing.
"Coach White's message at halftime, it really got to us," Hudson said. "It hit home and sent us out there ready for the second half."
The Bonnies' first seven possessions looked like this: turnover, missed shot, turnover, turnover, turnover, turnover, missed shot. The Gators, meanwhile, scored on four of their first seven possessions, including a 3-pointer by Allen to get the period started and a steal and run-out layup by Chiozza to complete a 9-0 run that had Schmidt calling a timeout with UF quickly ahead by 14.
"That's what got us going. We got stops early in the second half, and we got out running and got some easy baskets in transition, and we just kind of built the momentum from there," Chiozza said. "We were able to maintain it for most of the second half."
After that quick-hitting wave to start the period, the lead never went below double-digits and blew up to as high as 23. Along the way, Hudson wowed the crowd when he jumped over both Gators and Bonnies for a one-handed put-back slam-dunk that put an exclamation mark on UF's second-half culmination. The Gators shot 53 percent after intermission, forced 18 turnovers that were converted to 25 points, and destroyed the Bonnies 24-10 in transition scoring.
The genesis of those points (and the victory) began on the other end of the floor.
"It was a good overall team defensive effort, led by Chris Chiozza and KeVaughn Allen," White said. "Those guys really dug in and stepped up knowing how important it was to slow those terrific [SBU] guards down."
Texas Tech has some terrific guards, too. Because of its defense, Florida earned a chance to see them up close, as well.
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