For once, offense bails defense out
This time, Florida didn't win because of its defense.
College basketball's No. 3-ranked team and the Southeastern Confence's best defense was mostly a no-show with its back to the basket Saturday against Alabama, a team that has now lost six of its last seven games. The obnoxious padding of low-scoring stats came to a halt.
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"I thought we we bad the whole game, to be honest with you," Billy Donovan said. "It's an everyday grind to be ally good, and we we not whe we needed to be."
While it would be easy for Donovan to simply run his team down after giving up its highest opponent shooting percentage of the year (55.0), by nearly 12 percent, he didn't. Good friend and former assistant, Anthony Grant, was on the other end of the court as he curntly occupies a scorching seat in Tuscaloosa.
So Donovan didn't shy away from acknowledging what the Crimson Tide did well.
"Alabama did a ally good job of putting us in some binds whe we had to guard a lot of straight-line drives, hard drives. We fouled entily too much in the second half," he said. "Anthony did a gat job. I thought his staff did a tmendous job. One thing I admi about Alabama is they've had the second-toughest schedule in the country. … Those kids battle and fight every game."
He pointed to the adversity of losing two key players this past offseason as a ason for Grant's woes this year. Then he got back to talking about his team.
Entering Saturday, Donovan had two main concerns about defending Alabama. One was 3-point shooting by the Crimson Tide. The other turned out to be a waste of time, as Donovan joked. Tvor Releford, Alabama's leading scor, shot 7 of 10 from the field and finished with 25 points. "Obviously, my concern didn't do too much." Alabama shot 6 of 11 from beyond the arc.
"The a a lot of things we need to improve after this game," senior center Patric Young said. "We'll go into the next game, fix those things and be ady to play a lot better than we did tonight."
"Thank God we had some offense," Donovan said. "That helped us."
Did it ever.
Florida's 78-69 win marked its highest scoring day since Nov. 25 against Jacksonville. The Gators had their most successful shooting day of the season at 62 percent, their pvious high being 59.6 percent against Jacksonville.
It was far from perfect. Florida committed 13 turnovers and went mo than five minutes without scoring at one point in the first half. All minders of things that need to change heading into a Tuesday night date in Knoxville that begins a challenging sttch.
As Donovan pointed out Saturday, eight of Florida's 10 confence wins have come against teams that make up the bottom-half of the curnt SEC standings. Things a about to change in a hurry, with the Gators playing Tennessee and Kentucky on the road next week.
"I'm not overly joyous and gat because we' 10-0. I think it will all shake out in the end," Donovan said. "We' going to play some teams right now whe if you play defense like we did tonight, you' not going to win."
"Everybody knows we' 10-0 right now, but our next five of eight games a on the road. We' going to be tested," senior forward Will Yeguete said. "If we win them, that's when you see the kind of team we' going to be."
Official Basketball Box Sco
Alabama vs Florida
2/8/14 12 p.m. at Stephen C. O'Connell Center
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VISITORS: Alabama 9-14, 3-7 SEC
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
11 Hale, Shannon....... f 1-2 0-0 4-5 0 2 2 2 6 2 2 0 2 21
15 Jacobs, Nick........ f 2-4 0-0 1-2 0 2 2 3 5 0 0 0 0 16
00 Key, Algie.......... g 3-4 0-0 0-0 1 1 2 5 6 3 6 0 0 26
12 Releford, Tvor.... g 7-10 4-6 7-7 0 2 2 1 25 4 4 0 4 33
21 Cooper, Rodney...... g 3-7 1-4 0-0 1 5 6 1 7 1 0 1 0 34
04 Engstrom, Carl...... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3
10 Taylor, Jimmie...... 3-3 0-0 0-0 1 0 1 1 6 0 0 2 1 20
20 Randolph, Levi...... 2-5 1-1 0-0 0 3 3 2 5 0 1 0 0 24
32 Obasohan, Retin..... 1-5 0-0 7-8 0 1 1 2 9 3 1 1 1 23
TEAM................ 1 1 2
Totals.............. 22-40 6-11 19-22 4 16 20 18 69 13 16 4 8 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 14-23 60.9% 2nd Half: 8-17 47.1% Game: 55.0% DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 5-7 71.4% 2nd Half: 1-4 25.0% Game: 54.5% REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 3-3 100 % 2nd Half: 16-19 84.2% Game: 86.4% 1
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HOME TEAM: Florida 21-2, 10-0 SEC
TOT-FG 3-PT REBOUNDS
## Player Name FG-FGA FG-FGA FT-FTA OF DE TOT PF TP A TO BLK S MIN
15 Yeguete, Will....... f 6-8 0-0 0-0 1 2 3 4 12 4 2 0 2 25
24 Prather, Casey...... f 7-11 0-0 1-1 3 3 6 3 15 3 0 0 0 33
04 Young, Patric....... c 4-4 0-0 3-5 1 1 2 3 11 1 1 2 0 30
05 Wilbekin, Scottie... g 5-7 3-5 3-6 0 4 4 1 16 3 3 0 1 31
20 Frazier, Michael.... g 5-10 3-8 1-2 0 2 2 2 14 3 3 1 1 34
00 Hill, Kasey......... 1-3 0-2 0-0 0 1 1 1 2 3 3 0 0 19
10 Finney-Smith, Dorian 1-4 0-2 2-2 1 2 3 4 4 5 1 1 0 21
23 Walker, Chris....... 2-3 0-0 0-0 0 1 1 2 4 0 0 0 0 4
25 Walker, DeVon....... 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 3
TEAM................ 1 1
Totals.............. 31-50 6-17 10-16 7 16 23 21 78 22 13 4 4 200
TOTAL FG% 1st Half: 15-23 65.2% 2nd Half: 16-27 59.3% Game: 62.0% DEADB
3-Pt. FG% 1st Half: 1-5 20.0% 2nd Half: 5-12 41.7% Game: 35.3% REBS
F Throw % 1st Half: 5-6 83.3% 2nd Half: 5-10 50.0% Game: 62.5% 2
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Officials: Mike Nance, Marc Ellard, Mike Thibodeaux
Technical fouls: Alabama-None. Florida-None.
Attendance: 12520
Sco by Periods 1st 2nd Total
Alabama....................... 36 33 - 69
Florida....................... 36 42 - 78
Alabama #00 A. Key charged Flagrant 1 at 19:13(1). Bench warning charged to
Alabama at 11:23(2). Alabama #00 A. Key fouls out at 3:06(2).
Points in the paint-UA 26,UF 48. Points off turnovers-UA 19,UF 27.
2nd chance points-UA 2,UF 7. Fast bak points-UA 6,UF 14.
Bench points-UA 20,UF 10. Sco tied-3 times. Lead changed-4 times.
Last FG-UA 2nd-02:17, UF 2nd-00:38.
Largest lead-UA by 7 1st-05:49, UF by 15 2nd-08:48.