Florida basketball survived a second half Nevada comeback to secure a spot in the second round of the NCAA tournament.

"What a game, my goodness," Florida head coach Mike White said after the Gators' 70-61 win over Nevada . "The Wolf Pack were terrific. They continued to fight. They made great adjustments. They sped the game up. I thought we did a great job of controlling tempo."

Tenth-seeded Florida saw an 18-point lead get chipped away by the Wolf Pack in the second half, after Nevada put together an 18-4 run to cut the deficit to just two points. But the Gators were able to survive a six minute scoring drought and a Wolf Pack comeback.

"It was a big win for us. Nevada is terrific," added White. "We did enough down the stretch led by these two seniors [Kevarrius Hayes and Jalen Hudson], had enough poise and toughness, few possessions there late where it could have got away from us. We lost a little bit of poise at times but did enough, made some huge plays down the stretch to obviously survive and advance."

Hayes led the way for Florida with 16 points (5-6 shooting) with Hudson adding 15 points and KeVaughn Allen and Keyontae Johnson both adding in ten. Johnson also recorded ten rebounds to secure his third double double of the year.

The Gators relied heavily on their freshmen early on in the year, however, both Hayes and Hudson have stepped up in recent weeks.

White has finally found his vocal leaders.

On Thursday, the Gators were getting out rebounded 10-2 in the first ten minutes of the game. However, the first media time out changed Florida's drive. The players took ownership and it was Nevada' turn to get out rebounded 12-2.

"Our seniors have taken good ownership especially late in the season led by Kevarrius and Jalen here lately," said White. "We were getting beat up on the glass led by Jordan Caroline. He is as good of an offensive rebounder as we have played all year. He is just a handful."

The Gators once again demonstrated their strength defensively, holding Nevada's leading scorer, Caleb Martin, to just 5 of 22 shooting on the night.

"We just tried to slow him down and both the Martin brothers are really good in transition,'" said Hudson. "So we were just trying to slow them down in transition and make him take tough, contested shots."

"By setting our half court defense it gave us a better chance to guard these guys," said White. "Our guys have active hands. They have gotten more competitive throughout the year. I thought we contested a lot of shots but they missed a few, especially late in the game. I thought both the Martin twins had a few open looks and sometimes it's a make-or-miss game, and we were fortunate that they did.

"I would say probably more than anything it came with the preparation and level of respect that was necessary to guard these guys," added White. "Our guys, when you watch film on these guys and you show personnel our guys were like, wow! They knew we had our not hands full. They knew we would have to guard at a really high level to have success tonight."

According to the Gators, their six minute lapse was due to the fact they became too comfortable with. It was a wake up call.

"I felt like we didn't pay attention enough, felt like we got a little bit of a lead, a little too casual, reminded the team it was far from over," Hayes said about the last 15 minutes. "We had to stay locked in, in the moment and we had to stand together and eventually we dug ourselves out and could do enough to finish the game."

"They did a great job of speeding us up," said White. "They made us play a little bit faster and if we had just been able to convert one of those floaters, contested layups, one of those, and they've got great length. Obviously you're not going to get many open looks against them, but we had a couple that rolled around the rim there which might have been able to help us settle in a little bit and change defenses on them."

The Gators played a grueling SEC and non-conference schedule this season. A schedule that saw White's men play in a fair share of close match ups. Those experiences helped a young side beat a team full of veterans.

"We had a stretch during the season where we lost those games," said White. "Then we went on a stretch where we won some of those games and then we had the home game against LSU and we lost a heartbreaker. Then we were able to win a heartbreaker against LSU in the tournament and then lost one to Auburn. We've been here in these situations.

"I think this team now possesses a lot of toughness, and mentally we've probably made a bigger improvement than the physical level of toughness in that it's more important to our seniors late in the year and our freshmen have grown up a lot."