GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The game already was in blowout territory, what with Florida nearly doubling Elon's score and jumping to a 28-point lead barely three minutes into the second half, as point guard Tyree Appleby drained his team's third 3-pointer of the second half.
The Gators were cruising.
But then started coasting.
Yes, they were victorious in Tuesday's season-opening victory at Exactech Arena/O'Connell. UF defeated Elon 74-61, thanks to a game-high 20 points from guard Myreon Jones and another 18 points and six blocked shots from forward Colin Castleton, but the Gators — with their seven upperclassmen, including six battle-tested seniors — didn't file out of the O'Dome feeling particularly good about themselves.
"We're an older team, so guys should know better. We got to play two halves. We can't play one," said Jones, who went 7-for-14 overall and nailed four of his eight 3s to go with six rebounds and three assists. "Playing sloppy and taking crazy shots, that's not us. We hadn't shown that yet and we have to fix it."
Castleton had 17 points in the first half, but just one in the second when he missed both his field-goal tries (including a dunk) and went 1-for-4 from the free throw line (he shot 78.1 percent from there last year). The 6-foot-11 forward was kind of a microcosm for the Gators, who hit just shy of 52 percent in the first half, but tanked to just 32.9 in the second by making only nine of 28 field-goal tries.
"I feel like we let up," Castleton said.
UF went on a 30-10 run over the final 11 minutes of the first half (highlighted by 14 straight during one stretch) to take a 47-24 lead into the locker room. The Gators (1-0) held the Phoenix, out of the Colonial Athletic Association, to just 34 percent for the half and forced nine turnovers that were converted to 16 points.
Senior forward Colin Castleton (12) blocked six shots for the fourth time in his UF career, this time breaking a mark for blocks in an opener (previous four) held jointly by Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Reggie Hannah. (Photo: Courtney Culbreath/UAA Communications)
The first few minutes of the second half were more of the same. Jones, the senior Penn State transfer and 3-point sniper, made his first long-ball as a Gator and got fouled for a four-point play. About 40 seconds later, Jones hit another. Then Appleby (13 points, 3 assists, 4 turnovers) dropped a 3 to push the Gators in front 57-29 with just under 17 minutes to go in the game.
From there, Florida went 6-for-23 the rest of the way and basically looked out of sorts at times, compared to multiple possessions of unselfish and purposeful ball movement to that point. Jones drained back-to-back 3s bridging the under-8 media timeout to put the Gators back up by 25, but the Phoenix finished the game much stronger.
"I liked how we played for 20 and what I didn't like was that we didn't play for 40," UF coach Mike White said. "We let our foot off the gas pedal down the stretch. We played a lot of younger guys late, but that's not an excuse for the older guys playing like that. We got a little out of character with this group."
As such, the Phoenix (0-1) outscored the home team 32-17 over the final 17 minutes, and not really by shooting well. They only hit 42.3 after halftime and just two of nine 3s. What Elon did was out-rebound UF 22-17 after the break (and 18-6 over the final seven minutes), got to the free-throw line 18 times and forced seven turnovers to slowly cut into the fat margin.
Elon cut the lead to 13 inside two minutes, but the Gators broke their full-court pressure with freshman Kowacie Reeves tossing a nice lob pass in transition to classmate Toungthach Gatkek for an alley-oop slam that gave the Rowdy Reptiles something to cheer about.
It was a performance good enough to beat a mid-major without much drama, but one that should engender some concern — and urgency — with 20th-ranked Florida State, winners of seven straight in the rivalry series, coming to town Sunday.
"We just have a lot of things to work on," Castleton said. "If we play that way Sunday we're going to get blown out."