With a two-game losing streak looming over the Florida Gators basketball team heading into this week, they responded well, with two convincing road wins. After a historic 106-71 win at LSU earlier in the week, Florida traveled to Oklahoma looking to keep the momentum rolling.
After a back-and-forth start to the game that included five ties and five lead changes, the Gators took control late in the first half and went to the locker room with a comfortable 43-28 lead. The second half slump has come to be expected for Florida, but surprisingly, it did not come for the second game in a row.
The Gators went on a 7-0 run to start the half, which put them on a 21-5 run going back to the first half. From that point, the wind beneath Oklahoma’s sails was gone. Florida was in control of the game. The Sooners brought the game within 13 at one point in the half, but the Gators were not relinquishing their lead. Florida took an 84-52 win.
The Gators couldn’t quite follow up their performance at LSU, but again made history with the win. This week marked the first back-to-back 30-plus point road wins in Florida history. Florida’s three 30-point wins at UNF, LSU, and Oklahoma this season are the most in a single season in school history.
“It feels good,” said Mike White on the win. “I mean, to come to Oklahoma and beat a Lon Kruger team by one point would’ve felt great. We had a really good week. We played really well this week. I feel like we’ve spent a lot of time addressing our early second half issues, and both of these games, we were much better early second half. Although, we had a couple lulls there midway through second halves, but now the next issue is the most obvious issue. How do we bottle this up, the way that we’ve played this week on the road and try to replicate it at home in Gainesville in front of our crowd?”
The Gators have had a strange struggle at home this season. It is unusual for a team to generally look more comfortable on the road than in front of its home crowd, but that has been the case for Florida this year. Now, after a long week on the road, the Gators return home for the week with games against Missouri and Kentucky.
Most coaches would feel comfort in coming home after spending a week away, but White is feeling the opposite as he makes his preparations for the week.
“I’m nervous as heck getting on a plane and flying back to Gainesville, in terms of how we’ll play,” he said. “I love our new arena. I love our fans. The Rowdies have been incredible. It’s been electric in there, and it’s not like we’ve shot it poorly in there. For whatever reason, our defensive numbers, our defensive attention to detail, focus, intensity level, it has not been matched compared to how we’ve defended and rebounded on the road. It’s really odd, it’s really odd. I don’t know whether it’s distractions. I don’t know whether it’s just getting overly comfortable, just feeling like everything’s just gonna happen for us because we’re at home, but we are going to continue to address it as much as anything.”
While Florida coaches and players worry with preparations for upcoming games, fans can breathe a little easier after two outstanding performances in a row led by outstanding offense from a few young players this week. Freshman Eric Hester helped lead the charge against LSU with a career-high 16 points and a 5-for-5 night from three on Wednesday. This time, sophomore Kevarrius Hayes had his time to shine.
Hayes was 7-for-11 from the field and 6-for-9 from the foul line for a career-high 20 points against Oklahoma. He also led the team and posted a career-high with nine boards in the game. He was not flashy, but he took what was given to him, as he has done time and time again for the Gators this season.
“He was great,” White said on the sophomore center. “Kevarrius, the ball just finds him at times. He’s not hunting. He doesn’t have an agenda to, ‘Coach, call this play for me and when I get the ball, I’m gonna try to do this to try to score this many points’. He’s not worried about touches … It’s not always pretty, but his effort, his intensity level, was there today.”
Canyon Barry (15), Devin Robinson (13), and Kasey Hill (12) had double-digit scoring nights for the Gators as well. Barry finished the first half with 13 and cooled off in the second half, while Robinson did the opposite. He had just two points with 5:14 remaining in the game and finished 3-for-4 from three with two free-throws to go along in the final minutes.
The Gators now have four days to recuperate and get ready for a hectic end to the week coming up as they take on Missouri on Thursday and must make a quick turnaround when Kentucky comes to town on Saturday.