Florida Gators

DALLAS — His team appeared on the verge of being blown out. Texas Tech, seeded third in the NCAA Tournament East Region and backed by a thunderous home-court advantage, had run off nine straight points and taken an eight-point lead on Florida, the bracket's No. 6 seed and crippled by foul trouble with less than eight minutes to go. That's when UF coach Mike White, minus his point guard and best defender, went to a 3-2 zone defense — not an ideal option, given its track record in limited possessions this season — out of sheer desperation and lack of numbers.

Something strange happened. It worked.

"First time all year," White said later. "How 'bout that?"

The Gators not only staved off the Red Raiders and their ear-splitting crowd, they stormed back to tie the game with just under three minutes to go and throw a scare into the American Airlines Center. Temporarily.

On the next possession, star Tech guard Keenan Evans hit a clutch, go-ahead 3-pointer with 2:31 to play. Two minutes later, the lead was still three when a Florida full-court trap produced a turnover with 18 seconds left, but a missed 3-pointer by Egor Koulechov for the tie was followed by a second miss by KeVaughn Allen as time expired. With that, the Gators were on the wrong end of a season-ending 69-66 defeat in third-round NCAA play.

It was a difficult, bitter ending, what with the comeback and staring down as hostile a crowd as they'd seen all season. The Gators (21-13), though, left it all on the floor and fought to the finish in what was the final game for star and stalwart Chris Chiozza. The senior point guard and UF leader was saddled with foul trouble in the second half, getting hit with his fourth at the 13:00 mark and spending entirely too much time on the UF bench in what turned out to be the closing minutes of the season — and his career.

"It's tough to go out that way," said Chiozza, the program's all-time assist leader, after scoring 11 points, dishing three assists and carding three steals in his swan song performance. "We had two chances, but that's the way the game goes sometimes. We got what we wanted. We just didn't make it."

Instead, Texas Tech (26-9) made the winning plays, led by Evans' 22 points, including 3-for-4 from the 3-point line, to go with a terrific all-around game from freshman wing Zhaire Smith, who finished with 18 points, nine rebounds and seven assists in 37 minutes. The Red Raiders shot 48 percent in the second half, but it was their defense that led the Big 12 Conference in both scooping and field-goal percentage that allowed the Gators to convert at just a 39.7-percent clip for the game and only 33.3 after halftime, including 2-for-11 from long distance.

"We wanted to control the game with our offense, tempo-wise," Tech coach Chris Beard said after guiding the program to its first Sweet 16 since 2005. "Even though we were down at halftime by one point, we felt comfortable with the pace. We weren't going to beat Florida in the 80s and 90s, but we could play with them at this tempo."
 
UF was led by junior wing Jalen Hudson's 23 points, as well as 12 points and four rebounds from Koulechov. In what also was his final collegiate game, Koulechov connected on just five of 13 shots and two of his eight 3-point tries — he missed two 3-balls in the final 48 seconds with a chance to tie the score — while shooting guard KeVaughn Allen was 2-for-11 overall, 1-for-5 from deep, with five rebounds, four assists and four turnovers.

The Gators were looking for their sixth straight Sweet 16 in as many NCAA appearances, but the run ended at five.

"I thought we played well enough to have a chance," said White, whose team got to Saturday's round of 32 with a 77-62 thumping Thursday night of 11-seed St. Bonaventure. "I've been really proud of the way this team has evolved and developed and how we finished the season, beating Auburn, winning at Alabama, beating Kentucky. I thought we got a little bit out of character in the [loss to Arkansas at the Southeastern Conference Tournament], and then we turned it back around. We were really good the other night, and I thought we were pretty good tonight. We just got beat by a team that's probably a little bit better. At least they were tonight."

It was back and forth most of the game, with 12 lead changes and eight ties. Florida led by as many as seven in the first half and by five with less than 13 minutes to play in the game. That's when the Red Raiders went on a 14-2 spree (including the last nine of that run), with Evans accounting for half. His old-fashion 3-point play with 7:53 left — and with Chiozza on the bench — surged Tech ahead 58-50 and forced White to call a timeout to gather his troops.

It was then he opted for the zone.
 
Tech's first four possessions against the zone produced two turnovers and two missed shots, with the Gators scoring five straight points. UF stayed with the zone, shuffled Chiozza in and out, and kept chipping away. A three-point play by Hudson, also in foul trouble, made it a two-point game, at 64-62, and when a Red Raiders miss was followed by a UF break that ended with a Koulechov layup the score was tied at 64.

It was then that Evans, who had done plenty of damage driving the ball, dropped his dagger at the other end with the shot clock about to buzz.

"He hurt us from everywhere," White said.

The Gators still had their chances. Down three, Hudson drove into the teeth of the Tech defense, but had his left-handed layup swatted away at the rim with just over two minutes left. At the Red Raiders' end, Evans worked into the paint and tossed a lob over the UF zone that forward Zach Smith slammed through for a five-point lead with 29.4 seconds left, as the arena went berserk. Timeout, Gators.

Chiozza zipped up the floor and worked for a layup in next to no time, scoring with 25.8 left, again bringing the margin to three. Tech inbounded the ball to Evans, who was instantly swarmed in the baseline corner, with Hudson coming away with the steal at 18 seconds remaining.

White thought about a timeout, but liked what he saw with the floor spread and his star point guard with the ball.

"I'm not sure we could have drawn up anything better," he said.

Chiozza drove and got to the basket, firing a pass to Koulechov in the left corner. The shot missed. Gators forward Keith Stone (7 points, career-high 10 rebounds) snagged the rebound and threw back out to Allen in the corner. That one missed, as well, with the horn sounding and Florida's bench melting in disappointment.

"We got the turnover we needed," a distraught Koulechov said. "I was kind of ready to shoot there in the corner, but bobbled the ball a little bit, and then I saw my guy kind of fell down or kind of trip. It threw me off. It was a good look. Sometimes you hit those shots, but I didn't come through for my team. That's how it is sometimes."

And sometimes those times can be gut-wrenching.

Like this one.

"It didn't end the way I wanted it," Chiozza said. "I played as hard as I could, and we just come up a little short today."