To the untrained eye, Wednesday night’s game against Georgia Southern could have been mistaken for a rugby scrum. Players from both teams were diving left and right to recover loose balls on the floor. Elbows were being thrown and nobody was shy about shoving their hand in someone’s grill as they drove to the basket. Chandler Parsons learned this the hard way as he was broadsided by an Eagles defender as he drove the baseline, ejecting him into this sports writer’s lap knocking over my laptop.
“It got physical out there,” Parsons said. “In games like this where it gets chippy and gets physical you just got to keep your composure and play through it.”
The Eagles committed 32 fouls in the game and sent the Gators to the foul line 43 times. Unfazed by the physicality of the game was freshman Kenny Boynton, who scored 22 points in just his second collegiate game. Boynton didn’t have a great game shooting from the outside (1-6 on three-pointers but he did knock down his final three and got fouled on the play to complete a rare four-point play) but he kept attacking the rim and getting fouled. He took 12 shots from the field and knocked down six of them and he was 9-13 from the foul line.
After a very physical first half in which the Gators held a 26-25 lead, Boynton got the Gators off and running in the second half as he scored seven of Florida’s first 10 points with three layups off the break and a free throw. It was Boynton’s dunk after a rebound and pass by Erving Walker that got Florida’s first two points of the second half and that seemed to inspire the Gators.
It was just the way the Gators practice it every day.
“We’re looking to get it and go,” said junior center Vernon Macklin, who had 15 points and seven rebounds. “Whether it’s off a made basket or a missed basket where we get the rebound it and get out and go. That’s what we’re trying to do; we do it every day in practice and in pregame.”
Boynton pretty much took the game over in the second half. Whether it was finishing on the fast break or slashing to the basket off the dribble, he seemed comfortable being the catalyst for Florida’s 43-point second half.
“He’s got a little bit of that takeover mentality,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said after the game. “He wants to go get it. He wants to go do it. I like that he’s like that and I think it’s important he’s like that for our team.”
Perhaps Boyton’s biggest contribution to the team was his ability to drive the lane and draw fouls, allowing him to get to the free throw line.
“Coach wants me to go out there and stay aggressive and try to draw fouls,” Boynton said. “That’s what I basically tried to do every play, because I knew they would foul.”
Boynton also said that when he feels his team is slumping, his entire mentality changes. He starts looking to go to the basket where he can either score layups or draw fouls. He was an outstanding three-point shooter in high school, where he was a McDonald’s All-American at American Heritage down in Plantation, so it’s only a matter of time before he gets untracked beyond the arc.
The first three-pointer of his Florida basketball career came with 2:38 remaining Wednesday night. The Gators were trying to milk the clock with a nine-point lead when Boynton took a pass from Alex Tyus over on the right wing and knocked down the three-pointer as he was fouled by a Georgia Southern defender. He converted the free throw to extend the Gators to 60-47 lead that pretty much sealed Florida’s second win of the season.
That was the first clutch shot of Boynton’s Florida basketball career. You can figure there will be plenty more to come in the future.