NEW ORLEANS – The Gators walked off the floor, hands on their hips, breathing heavily. Minutes later, Patric Young, Brad Beal and Erik Murphy emerged from a stunningly silent locker room.
Murphy’s eyes were puffy, and Young was far from his normal upbeat self as he trudged toward the post-game press conference. Florida had dropped its third game of the season to No. 1 Kentucky – this time a down-to-the-wire 74-71 affair in the SEC Tournament semifinals.
“I want them to be bothered,” a slightly irked Billy Donovan said. “They should be bothered. They need to understand that you can give that kind of effort in the NCAA Tournament and you go home.”
Kentucky point guard Marquis Teague put the dagger into Florida with a pair of free throws with 14.5 seconds left, extending Kentucky’s lead to four points.
The Gators were simply worn down after gunning the ball up and down the court at a ferocious pace for most of the afternoon. And while they came up a little short against the nation’s top team, they might just have found their winning blueprint without sophomore power forward Will Yeguete in the lineup.
As the nation anxiously watched, hoping for the monumental upset, Brad Beal realized the game plan was working. Even though Florida fell, the loss brought a sense of accomplishment and purpose.
“We just displayed that we can compete with just about anybody in the nation,” Beal said. “We’re just going to come in with a lot of confidence moving into the tournament and moving forward.”
Florida’s game plan was simple. Run Kentucky into the floor and hope its seven-man rotation eventually wore down.
While the Wildcats wouldn’t wear down, the Florida’s offense would find itself. Beal and starting point guard Erving Walker got into the lane frequently. Their ability to convert on a couple early looks and dish to Patric Young and Erik Murphy for open buckets started to open things outside.
That’s when Beal and Murphy started raining down threes. Both hit four in the game, going a combined 8-11 from downtown.
Murphy finished with a career-high 24 points, while Beal chipped in 20.
“We penetrated a lot more than we usually do,” Beal said. “Usually we penetrate to try to score, but we actually were looking to pass and find open people.”
The speed of Florida’s game plan was tailored to wear down a Kentucky team that doesn’t boast a deep bench. But the principle of getting out quickly and penetrating to outside shooters seemed to work for Florida more than it worked against Kentucky.
Donovan explained it was because the Gators did a better job forcing its opponent to respect the rim that the up-tempo style worked so effectively.
“What a lot of teams are doing are saying ‘Okay, these guys are just three-point shooters, we’ve got to take away the three,’” he said. “What we’ve got to do is manufacture two-point baskets, whether it’s throwing it to Patric or spacing the floor and creating penetration.”
Florida did just that. Young scored 10 points and Murphy scored 12 of his 24 from inside the three-point line. The Gators racked up 30 points in the paint.
Donovan has seen his team make a lot of progress going back to the Vanderbilt game, and he’s starting to like how the team is looking without Yeguete.
“I thought we were doing a really good job early in the game driving the ball, playing really fast and getting in the lane and kicking it out,” he said. “And we really, I thought, had a combination of some basket drives for some layups and some kick-out threes.”
Though Florida wasn’t able to come up with the win due to a few costly stretches, including an 8-0 Kentucky run just before half and a 14-0 Kentucky run in the second half, the Gators are confident they can continue their offensive output by speeding up the tempo and attacking.
The game plan moving forward is to clean up the rebounding and turnover issues that cost Florida the game against Kentucky, while honing the fast-paced style that kicked the offense into high gear.
“That’s obviously one of our strengths, so we’ll probably keep on doing that,” sophomore guard Scottie Wilbekin said. “We got a lot of good guards on this team, and we’re pretty deep. We can rotate guys in and out and kind of wear the other team out a little bit.”