Things looked pretty bleak for the Gators with a little more than seven minutes to go in their game against Mississippi State on Wednesday night.
They trailed 64-57. Their top scorer, rebounder and rim protector, Colin Castleton, didn’t play all night because of a left shoulder injury. His backup, Jason Jitoboh, picked up his fourth foul a little more than three minutes into the second half.
Without the two of them out there, the Gators were at a size disadvantage against one of the most physical frontcourts in the SEC, and that showed in the final statistics. The Bulldogs outscored them by 14 points in the paint and outrebounded them by eight, including a plus-six advantage on the offensive glass.
Mississippi State made five more dunks and layups than Florida did, and they shot 54 percent overall for the game.
Plus, the Gators were in position to win their first three conference games and found ways to let those games get away from them in the second half. This felt like yet another disappointment waiting to happen.
And then, out of nowhere, the Gators exploded. They made six of their final eight field goal attempts, including two of three shots from deep. They made nine of their final 10 free throws. They put the clamps on Mississippi State at the other end, as the Bulldogs missed eight of their final 11 shots and turned it over three times during that stretch.
The Gators finished the game on a 23-8 run.
That surge to the finish line was enough for the Gators to exit the O’Connell Center with an 80-72 victory over Mississippi State for their second consecutive league win.
The decisive run started when Tyree Appleby drained a step-back three from the right wing and got fouled. He made the accompanying free throw after the commercial break to cut the deficit to three.
Phlandrous Fleming ended the Bulldogs’ next possession by blocking Iverson Molinar’s shot. Kowacie Reeves collected the rebound and led the fast break. It looked like he might pull up for a potential tying three. Instead, he found a wide-open Jitoboh underneath the basket at the last second for a dunk.
Tolu Smith slammed one home on Mississippi State’s next possession, but Jitoboh answered right back with another dunk, this one coming off of a wraparound pass by Fleming. It cut the deficit to 64-63.
“Jason’s been bought in,” UF forward Anthony Duruji said. “He’s been ready. Jason impacts the game so well. Mississippi State’s big, so we needed him. Obviously, Colin being down tonight, he stepped up, and he made big plays down the stretch, so we were thankful for that.
“I think [overcoming foul trouble] just speaks to Jason’s maturity. Even though he’s young, he acts like he’s older, and he’s really bought in. He responded well. We preach ‘Respond, respond, respond.’ We’ve battled with adversity this year, and we’re going to continue to battle with some more adversity, but I think our response has been better, and Jason displayed that today.”
The Gators (11-6, 2-3 SEC) got a stop on the next defensive possession, and Fleming made a pair of free throws to give them the lead for the first time since the eight-minute mark of the first half.
“I’m sure they gained some confidence just by taking that lead,” White said. “I want to say the first lead was at the foul line, and, after that second one went in, it got loud in there, and I thought it helped us defensively. Our foul discipline was pretty good. We rebounded decently down the stretch, and we did enough.”
Seconds later, Anthony Duruji made the biggest play of the game – and one that might find its way onto the SportsCenter top-10 reel.
Duruji jumped a passing lane and deflected a pass by D.J. Jeffries. He gathered the ball, sprinted toward the rim and took off from outside the paint. He hung in the air long enough to absorb contact and scoop in a shot from the opposite side of the backboard. It was the kind of shot that is more commonly found in a game of HORSE than an actual competitive game.
He made the free throw to extend his team’s advantage to 70-66 with 4:31 remaining.
Duruji then stole the ball away from Jeffries again on the next possession. He missed a three, but Jitoboh grabbed the rebound. Reeves buried a three about 10 seconds later to make it a seven-point game.
The Bulldogs (12-5, 3-2) extended the game by fouling and getting shots up quickly, but it didn’t matter. The Gators took care of the ball, made their free throws and defended well until the very end.
Duruji was magnificent on both ends of the court. He scored a UF career-high 22 points on 6-for-8 shooting (2-for-3 from deep), made eight of nine free throws, pulled down three rebounds and came away with a career-high five steals in 31 minutes.
Those stats are impressive enough to begin with, but consider this: 18 of those points and all five of those steals came in the second half.
Duruji has normally been a secondary part of the offense. He makes a few threes every now and then, but his main jobs are to crash the glass and make the hustle plays that don’t always show up in the box score.
That wasn’t the case against Mississippi State. White ran his offense through him, and it paid off.
“I would say just playing to what the defense gave me,” Duruji said. “Be simple, be assertive, be aggressive. That’s what I did. Just try to keep it simple in the flow of the offense.”
Appleby also turned in a great game, with 17 points on 4-for-9 shooting, all from beyond the arc. He dished five assists and secured four rebounds despite being the smallest guy on the court. He scored 13 of his points in the first half, but that four-point play in the second half was the turning point of the game.
Reeves scored 14 points on 3-for-6 shooting from deep, while Fleming played a solid game, with 10 points, five assists, three rebounds and two steals.
Shakeel Moore led Mississippi State with 18 points, and Smith had 17 points and six rebounds.
While the Bulldogs dominated the paint with Castleton not playing, Florida won this game at the free-throw line and behind the three-point line. They made almost as many threes (10) as the Bulldogs attempted (13), and they made 10 more free throws.
“Our mental toughness with shooting threes and at the foul line I thought was a big factor,” White said. “Forcing turnovers, going hard, staying together, and we overcame some adversity. These guys were told a few hours ago that Colin wasn’t going tonight. Tough news there, of course. We rallied. I thought we played with a lot of heart and a lot of toughness.”
With the win, the Gators will have a chance to get back to .500 in league play and build even more momentum when they take on Vanderbilt on Saturday.
The last seven minutes of their game against Mississippi State were ginormous.