With a .500 conference record, just two wins in Quadrant 1 games and an NCAA Evaluation Tool ranking in the 50s, the Gators entered the SEC Tournament squarely on the wrong side of the NCAA Tournament bubble.
ESPN’s Joe Lunardi, who is usually pretty spot-on with his projections, had them among the next four teams out.
So, they needed to go on a deep run in Tampa to have a chance to earn an at-large bid.
Instead, the Gators’ bubble was busted in the most heart-wrenching way possible. After they battled back from 10 points down with three minutes to go in regulation, Texas A&M’s Hassan Diarra buried a tightly contested three from the top of the arc with 0.4 seconds left in overtime to defeat UF, 83-80.
“I thought our guys showed incredible resiliency, as they have all season, to put ourselves in position a couple of different times to steal it after being down big,” UF coach Mike White said. “We dug ourselves a huge hole, of course, in the first half. Really proud of the character of these guys. Very, very somber locker room, obviously, a bunch of high-character guys that left it on the line, and, unfortunately, Texas A&M made some huge plays down the stretch. They hit a huge shot.”
Diarra’s unbelievable shot spoiled heroic performances by Florida’s Kowacie Reeves, Phlandrous Fleming and Niels Lane.
Reeves dropped in a career-high 21 points, all after halftime, and made a pair of tough threes down the stretch in regulation to send the game into overtime. His old-fashioned three-point play with 3:34 remaining in overtime put the Gators (19-13, 9-9 SEC) up by three.
Fleming scored 17 points, grabbed three rebounds and dished four assists. He scored seven points during the frantic rally at the end of regulation and scored half of the Gators’ 10 points in overtime.
Lane, known as a defensive stalwart, entered the day with his career-high for points in a game sitting at just six. He blew that figure out of the water and finished with 16 points on 6-for-8 shooting. He hauled down a career-high nine rebounds to narrowly miss out on a double-double. He scored 10 of his points in the first half.
“The fact that the ball was going in the basket for me in the first half definitely gave me a boost of confidence on the offensive end and the defensive end because it’s just natural,” Lane said.
Center Colin Castleton also had a solid game with 15 points, six rebounds and three assists, but he wasn’t as dominant as the Gators had hoped for against the undersized Aggies (21-11, 9-9).
While the last shot was a bit of tough luck for the Gators and they had a couple of borderline calls by the officials go against them in overtime, they can only blame themselves for this loss.
In a game that they knew was a must-win as far as their NCAA Tournament chances were concerned, they inexplicably looked lethargic, unfocused and sloppy in the first half.
Texas A&M got just about anything that they wanted at the rim, as the Gators couldn’t keep guards Quenton Jackson and Tyrece Radford in front of them.
At the other end, UF struggled against the Aggies’ length, physicality and activeness. They shot just 40 percent in the first half, including a 1-for-9 showing from three. They also turned it over eight times, with six of them being steals that gave the Aggies transition opportunities.
“Our game plan from the tip was to hammer it to Colin as much as possible for obvious reasons,” White said. “We thought we had an advantage there. Tried it at their place, and we weren’t as productive as we wanted to be and as productive as I thought we could be today with him getting deep touches, especially in the middle third where he wouldn’t be as easily doubled.
“If I could go back to noon, we probably would have moved it a little bit more and let Colin fall into a couple of post touches based out of our continuities than we did. I thought they did a great job pushing him off the block, walling him up, high-level physicality. And then, obviously, any time he was off the blocks, the second defender was there by the time he caught the basketball.
“Because we lost, every play that I called during the game, I would like to call differently. I just can’t go back to noon.”
Every loose ball seemed to go Texas A&M’s way, and they simply appeared to want it a lot more than the Gators did. They built a 16-point lead and led 33-25 at halftime.
“We just didn’t play as well as we should’ve,” Castleton said. “We came out lackadaisical. They were getting too many easy rebounds, and we just didn’t play good at all. Everybody knew it, and the coaches were telling us, ‘It was an awful half.’
“We did that a couple times this year, just coming out slow and trying to dig ourselves out of the hole, and, today, it just wasn’t enough. I feel like if we would’ve came out stronger in the first half, it wouldn’t have been that down the stretch.”
The ball-security issues continued to plague the Gators in the second half and in overtime, as they coughed it up 10 more times. However, the Gators did make shots at a fairly high rate when they did take of the ball, shooting 47 percent in the second half.
Most importantly, they made life miserable for the Aggies on the defensive end. After shooting a whopping 58 percent in the first half, they only made 32 percent of their shots in the second half and turned it over eight times themselves, which the Gators converted into 12 points.
Still, because of the stop-and-start nature of the second half – both teams were in the double bonus with 10:22 remaining – they weren’t able to make much of a dent into the deficit. They still trailed by 10 at 65-55 with a little more than two minutes to go.
That’s when things got fun.
Fleming made a layup off of an offensive rebound by Reeves to make it an eight-point game. The Gators got a stop, and Jackson fouled Castleton underneath the basket. Castleton made one of two free throws to make it a seven-point game.
Texas A&M’s Wade Taylor sank a pair of free throws at the other end to extend the lead back out to nine with 1:07 remaining.
Fleming then knocked down a three, and the Aggies’ Henry Coleman went 1-for-2 at the line to make it a seven-point game.
Fleming made two free throws just three seconds later, and then the Gators knocked the ball loose on the inbounds pass. The alternating possession arrow gave the Gators possession with 44 seconds left.
On the ensuing possession, Reeves pulled up for a three from the right wing. The shot went in, and he got fouled by Hayden Hefner in the process. He completed the four-point play to make it 68-67.
Taylor made a pair of free throws to extend the margin to three.
At other end, McKissic tried to drive past Radford for two points. Instead, Radford did a good job of cutting him off. McKissic dumped the ball off to Fleming on the left wing. Fleming faked right, took one dribble into the corner and launched a three with Ethan Henderson’s hand in his face.
It went down to tie the game at 70 with 17 seconds remaining. The Aggies didn’t get a shot off on their final possession, and the game went into overtime.
“He is really mature,” Castleton said of Reeves. “He just keeps the same mindset. I talk to him all the time and just tell him things that I learned when I was younger. He just soaks everything in, and you can’t ask for anything more from a teammate.
“It’s awesome to see because he hits those shots, and that’s what he is capable of. So, being able to just help build his confidence towards the end of this year and then obviously next year for him, it’s going to be huge because he is going to be a really good player when it’s all said and done.”
UF led 80-78 with 39 seconds remaining in the overtime period when a controversial call went Texas A&M’s way. The Aggies attempted to inbound the ball under the basket. They threw it to Radford near the sideline. Fleming had him tightly guarded, and the ball landed out of bounds. The officials initially ruled that Radford had touched the ball last, but, after a lengthy discussion, a foul was called on Fleming.
Radford made both free throws to tie the game and set the stage for the dramatic finish.
Coleman led all scorers with 22 points, and he also had eight rebounds and five steals. Diarra and Jackson both chipped in 14 points and three steals, while Radford had 13 points, five rebounds and four assists. The Aggies went a remarkable 9-for-17 from beyond the arc, while the Gators went just 5-for-24.
This season had some promising moments for the Gators. They started out 6-0, including wins over rival Florida State at home and Ohio State on a neutral court. They won four games in a row in late January and early February. They took down then-No. 2 Auburn and won back-to-back road SEC games, including a come-from-behind win at Vanderbilt.
Unfortunately for the Gators, they weren’t able to sustain success for any length of time, and they’re now likely headed to the NIT for the first time since 2016.
“A two-hour microcosm of the season,” White said. “Ups, downs, a lack of execution for a couple of minutes, an incredible fight for eight minutes, a really productive timeout, a span where we would lose a little bit of focus or lose control of our emotions a little bit and start pouting about a certain call or what have you and then leave everything we’ve got on the floor and come up just a little bit short.
“We’ve had four or five where we got the other ending, and we came out on the right side. Unfortunately, we’ve come out on the wrong side too many times.”