GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- With 2.5 minutes left on the clock and holding on to a seven-point lead, KeVaughn Allen could very well had his breakout moment.
"KeVaughn Allen said he wanted the ball and we rode him," said Florida head coach Mike White after the win against the Bulldogs. " I thought KeVaughn just showed that moxie and that leadership, 'Follow me, give me the ball, I'm going to go make some plays for us.' He was terrific.
"He was calling plays. 'This is the position I want to be in, coach.' 'Are you going to be aggressive?' 'Absolutely.' 'You got it; let's do it.' That's how close. He was really good, and I've done a poor job putting these guys in position late-game offensively. I've done a very poor job. We were a little bit better the other night led by KeVaughn."
This was not just a one game transformation. Allen followed up his performance against the Bulldogs with a season high 31 points against Texas A&M on Tuesday.
“It’s just two games in a row where he’s been aggressive and confident, ‘Give me the ball’, playing like an all-league guy,” White said shortly after the win over the Aggies . "His aggressiveness. His confidence level is in an all time high for him. The challenge for him is, there may be a stretch, not there definite will be, but there may be a stretch not going in for him, but you have to maintain that level of aggression and confidence.
"He has matured. He is older. He is playing very well," added White. “Everyone in this room knows that he’s capable of doing that, so it’s nice to see it for him and his teammates."
Allen's new found confidence is rubbing off on his teammates.
"He has the opportunity to lead by example, and thats one of the way you can lead by playing with confidence," said White. "We have two or three freshmen on the court, I’m not sure if they are playing confident as they would otherwise play. Your older guys look sure of themselves and poised, I think that stuff spreads."
“I just try to play hard in practice and games," said KeVaughn Allen. "No matter what, I just try to lead by example. But if he has any questions for me, I’ll give him advice.”
The Gators have certainly followed his lead. After failing to close out games, White's men have been able to string together two wins in a row. The Gators head coach now needs Allen and his side to become consistent.
"For this team to max out, he [Allen] has to continue to play like he has been playing," said White. "I don’t know if every night you are going to get that high level shooting percentage, but just playing hard, aggressive, confident."
"They want me to be more aggressive," added Allen. "I feel like everybody can take a step, you know, towards being aggressive and just help the team out. If everybody can take a step and just do more, we’ll win more.”
"You got to get Jalen going of course. He [Jalen] is coming off one of his better games his season as well," said White. "And then we’ve got to continue to find different ways to score. We’ve got to get more production from some of the guys on the bench."
The Gators will hope to record their third-straight win on Saturday, when they hit the road to TCU for the SEC/Big 12-Challenge.
" It’s an opportunity for us to get a quality win, potentially, if we play well. An opportunity for us to continue to develop a little bit better. Shore some things up," said White. "A team that’s very convicted in what they do. They’re very consistent. They play through Alex Robinson, he’s terrific. They’ve got defined roles. They’ve got some toughness. Defensively, they’re very, very solid. They’re very good in transition offense.
"They’re terrific at defending the 3. Really, really good," White added. "So this is a game where, I don’t know how many horse shots we’re going to get, you know, wide-open threes, if any. So we got to really execute well. We’ve got to pick our spots with shooting it, driving it, attacking close-outs, scoring two’s, which has been a deficiency of ours, as TCU knows. So we got to continue to diversify our offensive attack.”
Florida and TCU will tipoff at noon.
