For the third game in a row, the Gators trailed by a substantial number of points early in the second half.
For the third game in a row, they kicked things into another gear on the defensive end and made some clutch shots to pull out a win late.
On Saturday, they trailed Ole Miss 30-21 at halftime after shooting just 36.4 percent and being outrebounded by 13 in the opening 20 minutes. They got some open looks but couldn’t get enough of them to go down. At other times, their ball movement was poor, and they settled for low-percentage shots.
The game looked eerily similar to the Gators’ loss at Ole Miss less than two weeks ago, when the Gators went just 4-for-29 from three and were blown out.
This time, though, they created some second half – and overtime – magic. Florida outscored Ole Miss 41-27 over the final 25 minutes of the game to win 62-57 and climb back to .500 in SEC play.
As things usually go with this team, their fierce second-half rally started on the defensive end of the court. They held the Rebels without a field goal for the first 10:15 of the half and limited them to 5-for-21 shooting overall in the half.
“I thought our defensive effort in the second half was much better,” UF coach Mike White said. “I thought it was high level, especially late, last 10 minutes of the game. The five that were out there were getting after it. I’m not sure we could have played any harder than that, led by Colin Castleton.”
The Gators (15-8, 5-5 SEC) didn’t light the world on fire either to start the half, but they used their stingy defense to open the half on an 11-1 run over a span of about nine minutes to take a brief 32-31 lead after a pair of free throws by Castleton.
A couple of Ole Miss free throws by Tye Fagan and their first field goal of the half by Jarkel Joiner put the Rebels back in front by three with 9:45 remaining.
Florida’s Kowacie Reeves answered just seconds later with a three to tie the game. Myreon Jones scored on their next possession to reclaim the lead.
Fagan continued the leapfrogging with a three to give Ole Miss the lead again, but Reeves sank another three to give the Gators a 40-38 lead with less than seven minutes to go.
The Gators gradually stretched the lead out and seemed to have victory within their grasp when Jones buried a three to make it 48-42 with 3:36 remaining.
As it turned out, those would be their final points of regulation, as they missed their final three shots. Ole Miss used a layup by Nysier Brooks, a pair of free throws by Luis Rodriguez and a jumper by Fagan with 54 seconds left to tie the game.
Ole Miss (12-11, 3-7) got a stop and called timeout with 29 seconds left and a chance to win the game. Instead, UF’s defense bowed up once again and forced a missed three by Matthew Murrell.
Tyree Appleby gathered the rebound and sprinted down the court, looking for his second buzzer-beating game-winner of the season. However, he slipped as he was about to pull up for a three. He desperately heaved the ball toward the basket while falling backward, and it didn’t come close to going in. So, the teams went into overtime tied at 48.
Appleby drew a foul on the first possession of the extra period and made both free throws. Brooks answered with a dunk to tie it right back up again.
Appleby missed a layup on the next possession, which gave the Rebels a chance to take the lead and seize the momentum. This time, Phlandrous Fleming stole the ball away from Fagan. Appleby drew another foul on the ensuing possession and made two more free throws to give the Gators a 52-50 lead.
Castleton then made back-to-back baskets and Jones threw in a dagger of a three-point shot to make it a nine-point game with 41 seconds to go.
Things got a little dicey after Murrell made a three and Fleming turned it over on an inbounds pass, but the Gators made enough stops and free throws down the stretch to make the lead hold up.
“We knew as a team that we weren’t defending as well in the first half.,” guard Niels Lane said. “Just like the Oklahoma State game, we had to come back in the second half and really lock in on defense. I think that’s our biggest strength, but it can also be our biggest deficit, so we definitely had to lock in in the second half on defense.”
Castleton was the star of the game for UF. He surprisingly started the game after missing the last six games while recovering from a left shoulder injury, and he looked a bit gassed and out of rhythm at times. Despite that, he still managed to score 17 points (including those two huge baskets in overtime), grab seven rebounds and swat three shots in 34 high-energy minutes.
“I think, in the past three weeks, he’s played a combined four minutes of full-court competition, and that was [Friday] in practice, and it was half the intensity level of that,” White said. “He was trying to get to the game without bumping anything. He was kind of walking on eggshells because he hasn’t done much in however long it has been. The performance – forget the points and rebounds – he’s plus-16 [in] 34 minutes. I never could have imagined he would have played 34 minutes today.”
Castleton said that it felt good to do more than just serve as an extension of the coaching staff for the first time in a while.
“It was definitely rough not being able to play out there, but I believed in my teammates,” he said. “Those are my brothers. They go in every night, and they fight. They practice hard every day. Just being able to be there for them, to be an extra extension of the coaching staff, which is what they told me. ‘Just take it day by day, keep doing rehab and just keep doing what you’re doing because you’ll have an opportunity if you just keep doing what you’re doing as far as rehab and just having the right mindset.’
“At first, it was definitely hard not being able to play because, if somebody takes something you love away from you, it definitely hurts, but you know there is an end to it. So, I was able to just get through it and back to hoopin’.”
Appleby scored 10 points (with all but three coming from the free-throw line) and carded 10 assists to record a double-double.
“Dang, that’s crazy,” Castleton said. “Double-double with assists. Wow. That’s impressive; I’m not going to lie. He didn’t care about shots that weren’t going in. He just kept playing hard, finding me, finding my teammates, and he was knocking his free throws down. He really won us the game down the stretch. If you foul him, you’ve got to know he’s going to make them. That was a big performance for him.”
Fleming turned in a nice all-around day of 10 points, seven rebounds and three blocks, while Jones and Reeves both knocked down a pair of threes at just the right times. UF went 6-for-12 from beyond the arc in the second half and overtime.
Fagan led the Rebels with 15 points and five rebounds, but he also turned it over an astonishing nine times. UF’s 15-6 edge in points off turnovers ended up playing a large role in the outcome.
Brooks bullied the Gators inside for 11 points, nine rebounds, two assists and two blocks.
Saturday’s game in the O’Connell Center wasn’t a thing of beauty by any means. In fact, it was probably one of the most poorly executed offensive games that you’ll ever watch. Neither team could make wide-open shots or make smart decisions with the ball on anything close to a consistent basis.
But, at the end of the day, that doesn’t matter. The Gators are squarely on the NCAA Tournament bubble with a little more than a month to go, and a quadrant three loss at home would’ve been devastating to their resume.
It wasn’t pretty, but the Gators found a way to get the job done for the third game in a row.
“You don’t want to play with it too much, of course,” White said. “You want to be the best version of us and each individual for 40 minutes. That’s what we are all looking for. Can we get nine, 10 guys to play really well on one night? That’s what every team in our league is trying to do, of course. So, there’s some negative to it, but the positive to it is that, again, this group [faces] adversity, adversity, adversity; I know I just wear it out. Resiliency, the confidence to stay the course and the increased mental toughness level.
“Earlier in the year, we didn’t respond well to those types of adversities, so [I’m] proud of that.”