Florida Gators

FORT WORTH, Texas — With just under four minutes remaining and his team up four at Georgia last weekend, Florida coach Mike White huddled with the Gators and called for a play on his grease board. The play, like the ones he drew up in a road loss at Mississippi State three nights earlier, were designed to end with the ball in the hands of guard KeVaughn Allen. 

"Are you gonna shoot it?" White asked sternly. 

Allen, the 6-foot-2 senior and one of the most gifted scorers in program history, answered with one of his typical shrugs. 

The response didn't exactly instill confidence in the coach, so he tried something different. White already was putting Allen on the spot, so he decided to go all in.    

"OK, what do you want to run?" White shot back. 

[Read senior writer Chris Harry's comprehensive "Pregame Stuff" setup here]

Allen offered a suggestion that made White immediately think back to Mississippi State. In that game, clinging to a two-point lead, he called three times for the very same action Allen suggested in the final two minutes; an action that uses two screens to get Allen isolated on a big man to attack one-on-one. Twice Allen eschewed the matchup and passed the ball to freshman forward Keyontae Johnson. The other time, Allen drove the lane, but had it tapped away and blocked out of bounds off him and to the Bulldogs. Mississippi State won the game in the final seconds. 

White, of course, remembered these sequences. How could he forget?  

"OK, but we ran it last time and you didn't shoot it," White was quick to point out. "You gonna shoot it this time?" 

When Allen shrugged again, White demanded Allen tell him a play that would end with a shot. The Gators' coach was not going to let Allen off the hook this time. UF's best offensive option was Allen getting the ball and he was going to shoot it. Period.  

So Allen asked for one play he liked. One that featured a sprint along the baseline, past a screen, and to an open area of the floor. 

"And you'll shoot it?" White returned. 

Allen nodded. 

Good enough 

He shot it, all right. Allen scored seven of his team's last 10 points against Georgia, with two clutch baskets and a pair of free throws. The first was a 3-ball from the left corner; the second a drive from the right wing into the lane for a left-handed floater. They were shots that closed out a big road win and sent the Gators home happy. Three nights later, Allen chased that game with a season-high 31 points in a come-from-behind home win Tuesday over Texas A&M. He hit 10 of his season-high 16 field-goal attempts, including eight of 10 from the 3-point line. Along the way, Allen found a level of aggression and assertiveness absent far too often during his four-year, 1,528-point career, as UF stormed from 13 points down and completed the program's biggest second-half comeback victory in 26 years. 

Thank you, K. 
 
It's that version of Allen the Gators (11-7) need Saturday on the road at Texas Christian (14-4) in the SEC/Big 12 challenge, and even more so when the team returns to Southeastern Conference play next week — with upcoming dates against No. 20 Ole Miss, No. 8 Kentucky, at No. 16 Auburn, then at No. 1 Tennessee in succession — if they intend to make the most of what is left of the 2018-19 season. 

"His aggressiveness. His confidence level is at all time high," White said Friday. "The challenge for him is that there may be a stretch -- no, there definitely will be a stretch --  when [the ball] is not going in for him. But you have to maintain that level of aggression and confidence. He controls that, whether it goes in or not. We need that. Those are the conversations being had. He is in a very good place. He has matured. He is older. He is playing very well."

Then came this rooted-in-reality declaration: "For this team to max out, he has to continue to play like he's been playing."

That doesn't mean Allen has to score 31 points. It does mean he has to hunt shots through the flow of the offense. 

Fourth-year junior forward Keith Stone is Allen's closest friend on the team. Stone suffered a season-ending knee injury at Georgia and watched the end of that game in the locker room. He watched the A&M rally from the UF bench. Stone saw what was happening with his buddy and it made him smile. 

"He wanted the ball," Stone said. 

But why in those games as opposed to the overwhelming majority of his previous 123 games? Could it be the No. 14 scorer in UF history, perhaps, is sensing his collegiate mortality? When asked, Allen swore that was not the case. Hadn't even thought about it, yet.

"I just want this team to win," he said. "I'm just trying to take the next step as a senior, just trying to be a leader and lead by example."

It's no coincidence that so goes a confident Allen, so goes his team. He understands that. 

The rest of the Gators feed of it.

"They want me to be more aggressive," he said. "I feel like everybody can take a step toward being aggressive and just help the team out. If everybody can take a step and just do more, we'll win more."

The Gators, though, really needed Allen to do more to win their last two games.

Allen's shots fell early Tuesday, which is usually a good sign; something that keeps him on the attack. Against the Aggies, they fell at an extraordinary rate and kept falling, especially in the second half, with his hot hand even manifesting itself with some emotion. When Allen drove the lane and threw in a circus-act bank shot and was fouled, he gave an "and-one" finger-flip as he spilled across the floor. Allen hit all four of his 3-point tries after halftime, including a late shot-clock, late-game one from the top of the key that banked in and put an ear-to-ear smile on Allen's usually stoic face. 

This was a different Allen. A beaming one and supremely confident one. 

The best one.
 
"It was like he was just in the moment and enjoying the game," said center, classmate and close friend Kevarrius Hayes. "Being who KeVaughn is, he never wants to be that selfish teammate. He's always been a little passive, even though we're always encouraging him to be aggressive. We trust him. We want him to try to score." 

More specifically, the Gators need him to score ... more. Nobody expects Allen to hit 80 percent of his 3s, anymore than they should expect routine 27-point outbursts from freshman Noah Locke, who shared the shooting spotlight with Allen against A&M. But no one needs to encourage Locke to take shots when he's open, either. That needs to be Allen's mentality, as well. 

With a minimum of 13 games left in his college career, and the fate of the Gators' season very much in his hands, Allen has to let 'em fly. That's what everyone around wants him to do.

And, if need be, Allen can even pick from where those shots come.  

"He needs to have that same clear head and clear mind he had the other night," Hayes said. "And then just go play."