Florida Gators

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — To contextualize just how dominant Tennessee's renowned defense was Friday consider that red-hot Florida shooting guard Tre Mann erupted for a career-high 30 points in a game that was never really close. Mann had a whopping 28 points in the second half, by the way, with most of them coming as the Gators, who never led, tried in vain to cut into a deficit that sat in double-digits for an overwhelming majority of the final 30 minutes. 

Some rough and tumble minutes, at that. 

"It was definitely chippy," Mann said. 

The fourth-seeded Volunteers got a balanced offensive attack of five players in double-figure scoring, but it was their physicality and defense — they began the day ranked No. 4 nationally in defensive efficiency — that stifled the fifth-seeded Gators and eliminated them from the Southeastern Conference Tournament in quarterfinal play by a 78-66 count at Bridgestone Arena. 
 
Sophomore point guard Santiago Vescovi had 14 points, with a quartet of 3-point makes, to go with five assists, freshman guard and future NBA lottery pick Keon Johnson went for 13 points and nine rebounds, and sophomore forward Josiah-Jordan James was good for a dozen points and nine boards. But the stat line (and biggest influencer) of the game belonged to UT forward Yves Pons, the 202 SEC Defensive Player of the Year, who tallied 11 points, eight rebounds, blocked eight shots and altered who-knows-how-many more, as the Volunteers (18-7) limited the Gators to just 34.5 percent for the game and held UF's six-man rotation in the front court to just 16 points.

One of those six, sophomore forward Omar Payne, was ejected from the game less than three minutes into the second half after officials assessed him with a Flagrant-2 foul for throwing what they deemed an intentional elbow to the head of UF forward John Fulkerson. The contact left Fulkerson on the floor for several minutes before he left the game for good and was taken to the hospital. 

"I haven't seen it, honestly," Florida coach Mike White said of the Payne play after the game. "I'm assuming he did something he wasn't supposed to. … We have to be better than that, more mature than that, and show better sportsmanship while playing with an ultimate level of physicality, but play by the rules, as well." 

There was very little physicality from the UF side. Whereas the three UT players with at least eight rebounds also combined for 36 points, the Gators were led on the glass by Colin Castleton's seven boards and backup forward Osayi Osifo's six, with those two totaling six points. The half-dozen UF front court players went a collective 7-for-21 from the floor. 

Mann, on the other hand, rebounded from a 1-for-8 first half to bang seven of his 11 second-half shots, plus nine of 10 free throws. His production, plus another 14 points from fourth-year junior guard Tyree Appleby (though just 3-for-13 from the floor), helped the Gators go from trailing by 17 to just eight with just over 11 minutes left before the Vols started to take the margin back out with a combination of drives to the bucket, 3-pointers and a bunch of stops on the defensive end. 

"They're big, strong, fast, they have great athleticism in the backcourt," White said. "They're one of the best defensive teams in the country." 

And in beating Florida twice in five days — Tennessee won the regular-season finale for both teams Sunday in Knoxville by a score of 65-54 — the Vols in both games put the clamps on a Gators team that was ranked first in the SEC in field-goal percentage, 3-point shooting percentage and free-throw percentage. 

"They have some of the better [defensive] coverages that I've seen all season," Mann said. 

UF trailed by 16 late in the first half, thanks to 21-percent shooting through the first 12-plus minutes, but went on a 10-3 spurt to end the half and trailed by just nine at the break. Twice the Gators got it to seven early in the second half, but a 13-3 run by the Vols included the two flagrant-foul free throws by Vescovi — the play by Payne fell into the Gators' season-long penchant for letting their emotions get the best of them — and the hole was just too big against a defense that was just too good. 
 
Now, it's on to the NCAA Tournament, probably as a 9-seed, with three losses over the previous four games and a collective pride that seems wounded, to put it mildly. 

"My guys are tired. It's been an emotionally draining season, and no one has been through what these guys have gone through," White said. "So to go overboard on beating us up about how emotional we are or immature we are, coming off a loss here, two in a week … ."

The coach tailed off, choosing not to go there, but continued. "We've got to infuse some type of confidence, some type of open discussion with all of us and put this stuff behind us and figure out how much we can grow up in a short amount of time and maybe finish this thing strong."