It was the same story, different game for the Florida Gators basketball team on Wednesday night as it fell to the Georgia Bulldogs for the second time this season.
The Gators just can’t seem to get out of this funk. Every time it looks like Florida is taking a step in the right direction, it finds itself taking five more steps back.
The overtime home loss to Georgia exemplified that season-long frustration.
The Gators led for a majority of the first half and took a 34-27 lead to the locker room.
Florida took advantage of a four-minute scoring drought by the Bulldogs early in the second half to go up by 10.
By the midway point in the half, the Gators were feeling pretty comfortable with a 50-39 lead and Georgia’s offense struggling to put points on the board.
It wasn’t until about the six-minute mark that things started to get hairy.
The Bulldogs went on an 8-0 run while Florida went ice cold, and suddenly that substantial lead was cut to one point with three and a half minutes to go in regulation.
Egor Koulechov completed a three-point play to halt Georgia’s momentum, and drained a three-pointer a couple possessions later to make it 57-50 with 1:29 on the clock.
All the Gators had to do from there was get a stop and make some free throws, but of course it wasn’t that easy.
A Tyree Crump three-pointer with just over a minute remaining left the entire building of Florida faithful with their jaws on the floor.
The Gators and Bulldogs both turned it over on their next possessions, forcing Georgia to foul Koulechov with 25 seconds left. He made both free throw attempts to push Florida’s lead all the way back to six.
Yante Maten did what he does the next time down the court as he knocked down a three with 17 seconds to go, keeping the Bulldogs’ hopes alive.
Florida just needed a good inbounds play and a couple more free throws to seal the deal.
Chris Chiozza was forced to call a timeout on the first try at it, and out of timeout, he still couldn’t get it to either Koulechov or KeVaughn Allen. He found Jalen Hudson instead, but he was whistled for traveling, giving Georgia the ball back on its end of the court.
“We’ve struggled to get the ball in bounds all year versus pressure,” said head coach Mike White. “This team lacks physicality, as we’ve talked about. We’re in a one-on-one situation with one of their perimeter guys. If we just get the ball in bounds to one of our two 90 percent shooters, the game is over … It was an absolute lack of discipline, and that’s on me. That was not supposed to happen.”
It did happen, and the Gators opted not to foul with a three-point lead and 15 seconds to go. Georgia had already grabbed several of its own missed free throws throughout the night, and White didn’t want to take a chance at letting that happen again.
So, the Gators challenged Georgia’s offense to beat them one last time, and the Bulldogs called their bluff. Maten found himself deep and wide open with the final seconds ticking off the clock, and he made the Florida pay for a lack of communication.
That swoosh sent the two teams into overtime tied at 59.
Florida just couldn’t get anything going in the overtime period, but it wasn’t due to lack of opportunities.
Georgia fouled three times within the first minute and a half.
Chiozza was the first to go to the foul line after the Bulldogs quickly took a 61-59 lead to start the period.
With the opportunity to tie it, he uncharacteristically missed both of his attempts.
Kevarrius Hayes was fouled going up for a defensive rebound on Georgia’s following possession, and he hit one to make it a one-point game.
After a Georgia dunk on the other end, Hayes was back at the line again. This time he couldn’t get either attempt to go.
That in itself accounted for five missed opportunities the Gators had at their fingertips.
A Crump three-pointer pushed Georgia’s lead to 66-60, but Allen answered with one of his own to bring it back within a single possession.
Allen then had to answer a Maten jumper with a couple of made free throws, which made it 68-65 with 2:07 remaining.
The Gators couldn’t capitalize on a Chiozza steal, and he picked up a foul going after a loose ball the next time on defense.
Georgia’s Derek Ogbeide gave the Gators a break by missing both of his free throws.
Chiozza attempted to tie the game with 24 seconds on the clock, but his three was off the mark, and Florida had to start fouling.
Crump pushed the Bulldogs up by five with a couple of free throws, then Allen and Mike Okauru connected for a quick layup, making it 70-67 with 13 seconds left.
Georgia proceeded to make just one of its free throws, and Chiozza drove it all the way down the court for another layup that brought it within two points at the four-second mark.
The Bulldogs handed Florida another gift by making just one free throw again. Chiozza raced down the court for one more try to send the game into a second overtime, but the three at the end of the clock did not go.
That ended a crushing game for the Gators as they fell 72-69.
“We just have to stay focused, honestly,” Okauru said. “That’s it. If we can’t stay focused for a full 40, then we’re gonna have outcomes like that.”
The Gators were feeling so good coming into the game, and that may very well have been their downfall.
Anytime Florida has found success this season, it seems to get too high on that and lose sight of the challenge at hand.
The Gators finally felt like they were onto something after two impressive performances last week. The fact that the optimism for the remainder of the season was premature along with the ugly performance to close out the game made this loss the toughest of the season.
“Yeah, especially the way we lost it,” White said. “If you get the ball inbounds, you win the game. If you get a stop, you win the game. If you communicate, you win the game. Despite mistakes for the first 39 minutes. That’s about as tough of an ending to a game that I’ve experienced.”
Koulechov and Allen finished with 19 points apiece and Okauru put up 14, coming just one point shy of his career high.
That wasn’t enough to combat an off night for Chiozza, who went 2-for-14 from the field, as well as a disappointing performance from Hudson, who ended up fouling out and did not score a single point. When a team’s leading scorer and overall leader both don’t show up in the same game, it typically doesn’t end well.
A 23 point, 10 rebound night from Maten didn’t help the Gators’ cause either. He and Ogbeide grabbed 20 of Georgia’s 44 boards in the game.
To add insult to injury, Georgia has lost six of the last eight games, with both of its wins in that stretch of nearly a month coming over Florida.
While it’s a tough one to accept and a blow to the much-needed momentum the Gators recently built, it’s a game that must be put in the rearview.
Florida has to travel to Nashville on Saturday to take on a Vanderbilt team it’s struggled mightily with throughout the White era, and dwelling on this game won’t do the Gators any favors.
“We’ve gotta rid of this one quickly,” White said. “We’ve gotta get to sleep. I don’t even know what time it is. Our guys have gotta hydrate and we’ve gotta recover physically, obviously. But we’ve gotta flush this mentally so we can really focus on the scouting report to defend the Commodores.”