Gator Country

Erik Murphy photo courtesy of Curtiss Bryant.

At the 16:05 mark of Florida’s SEC Tournament semifinals game, Tide guard Trevor Releford dropped in two free throws to swell Alabama’s lead to ten points, the largest of the game for either team. Someone asked if I thought the Gators could make up a ten point difference in 16 minutes. My response was that at that point, the Gators had played so poorly that I was not convinced the Gators would score ten more points the entire game. After all, they had not scored a field goal in over five and a half minutes dating back to the first half.

But I had forgotten one of the fundamental truisms of college basketball: nothing you have seen can predict what you are about to see. Because there is no other sport, I know, that has more point swings, more momentum shifts and more ups and downs in fan outlooks and emotions than college basketball. I also forgot one of the fundamental strengths of this years’ Gator team.

Not only did Florida score more than ten points the rest of the game, they scored the next 15 points of the game. And they went from a ten point deficit to a five point advantage in just 4:35 of clock time. While Gator Nation was waiting for Erik Murphy to break out like he did a day earlier against LSU, Kenny Boynton did it instead. The guy who to that point had only taken three shots - and missed them all badly - went off, dropping in 11-straight points on 4-of-4 shooting, 2-for-2 from the charity stripe, and 1-of-1 from beyond the arc. He even added a defensive rebound.

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