White sends message in Florida Gators basketball win

The Florida Gators basketball team finished the weekend with a 65-56 win over the Miami Hurricanes in Orlando, Fla. on Sunday night. What a sweet victory considering the Hurricanes have come out with the win against the Gators in the last two seasons.

Despite the win, it took the Gators almost the entire first half to finally wake up and out-perform the Canes.

The Gators presented the same starters Sunday afternoon: Kasey Hill, KeVaughn Allen, Devin Robinson, Justin Leon and John Egbunu. Egbunu “Big John” put up the first point on the board followed by Robinson who contributed a total of 10 points in Sunday night’s game

However, Gators head coach Mike White did not look happy as the Gators trailed behind the majority of the first half. Since the defense was lagging behind, Coach White made the decision to change the lineup completely, subbing in 5 new players.

“[I’m] not pleased with the way we started each half defensively but extremely pleased that we were able to dig deep, rely on our bench, find a way to muster enough energy with tired brains and tired legs to get it done,” Coach White explained.

After the game, Hill commented on Coach White’s move to take out all 5 starters –

“Coach did it for the right reason. We were jogging back on defense and we needed that… We needed to be benched. It changed our mindset and we got back in and started playing harder.”

White touched on the maturity of this year’s team and the benching that took place early in the game –

“Any time a guy gets taken out of the game because you’re mad at him… most times they’re not very happy. I credit our guys with the culture that they’ve created with this team right now… It’s a very healthy culture right now in that when 5 guys get taken out of the game there’s no drama. You’re not dealing with any drama.”

As far as the benching goes, he explained that it’s more of a statement than anything else.

White was very happy with redshirt freshman forward Keith Stone’s performance Sunday night. Stone achieved a career high record with 9 points in the first half, beating his previous high of 6 points. Early in the third period, Stone shot two free throws adding to his career-high night.

“Keith Stone hasn’t been given a lot of opportunities. We knew that at some point he was kind of going to settle in and provide some production, earn some more minutes, and we just kind of saw glimpses of what he potentially could be for this team. He has a chance to be a very good player,” Coach White said.

By the look of his performance, it was clear that Stone played with a calm yet confident mindset against Miami. To add, Stone said it was just a regular game to him.

When asked about his confidence, Stone commented, “I got confidence from my teammates telling me to shoot, and they gave me confidence even though I was having a bad start. They kept telling me ‘keep going, you’re doing well, we got you…’ We just came together as a family and that helped me out.”

Among other top performers in Sunday night’s game was senior Kasey Hill. Coach White was pleased with Hill’s decision making in general.

“Not only did he stay poised at the foul like, but I thought he did a good job of engaging their lives off ball screens. A lot of times, because of his speed, he would occupy two defenders for more than a couple seconds, allowing someone else to be open on a lift or a turn of the basketball and then him and Cheeze [Chris Chiozza], I thought, made some really good interior passes,” Coach White said.

A big part of Sunday evening’s win came from Friday night’s 72-77 loss to Gonzaga. Coach White coincides with this notion –

“It was an emotional loss for us. I think it’s pretty obvious. So to come back and find a way to get this one is huge. I think that it’ll give us confidence going forward in our character, in toughness… but we showed some fight and some toughness just to find a way.”

The Gator’s demonstrated this fighting energy in the second half of Sunday night’s game as the momentum quickly shifted in the Florida Gator’s favor.

“I thought that our poise [and] our maturity improved to a certain extent today, really over night, over forty-eight hours. I was really pleased to see that,” Coach announced after the victory.