Another winnable game slips through the Gators' fingers

Tommy Haugh scores two of his 27 points against Auburn (Photo by Chris Spears)

For the sixth time this season, the Florida Gators (14-6, 5-2 SEC) let a perfectly winnable game slip through their fingers. Give Auburn (13-7, 4-3 SEC) plenty of credit for scoring a 76-67 win over the 16^th-ranked Gators at the O-Dome, but it’s not like the Tigers didn’t get a lot of help.

Last Saturday in Nashville, the Gators were money at the foul line. Against Auburn, it was hit or miss. Too many misses. Florida went 16-27 from the line. Auburn, meanwhile, went 19-21. That’s not the only place the Gators rolled snake eyes, but it’s a rather good place to start. And while on the subject of shooting, Florida went 7-27 from the 3-point line, quite a few of the misses uncontested.

“I think the biggest thing was the free throws,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “We left some points on the board, missed some open shots when we needed to.”

In Florida’s six losses, they are a combined 40-153 from the 3-point line. That’s 26.1 percent. That’s grim.

Add first half defense, particularly on Keyshawn Hall, to Florida’s list of woes. Hall scored Auburn’s first 10 points as the Tigers blew out to a 19-5 lead in the first 4:33 of the game. He scored 22 in the first half, hitting 7-10 from the field overall, 3-4 from the 3-point line and 5-5 from the foul line. Golden tried numerous defenders to try to cool off Hall, but he was having nothing of it.

Making matters worse, KeyShawn Murphy put in 10 of his 16 points in the first 20 minutes. Auburn hit 15-29 from the field in the first half, 4-10 from the 3-point line and 9-9 from the foul line.

The Gators, meanwhile, played their worst half of basketball all season. They missed shots (10-26 from the field and 4-9 from the foul line). They couldn’t get stops in the paint (Auburn outscored the Gators 22-12 in the paint in the first 20 minutes). They were outrebounded 19-13 and their six turnovers were transformed into 16 Auburn points.

It was 43-28 at the half and it would have been much worse except for a 13-2 run that saw the Gators cut the Auburn lead to 21-18 on an Xaivian Lee 3-ball with 10:34 remaining. Auburn regained its composure with a 10-1 run led by Hall, who nailed a pair of threes while scoring eight of the Tigers’ points.

Hall would score only two in the second half, but the damage he did in the first half was practically irreversible.

“Our first half effort on Keyshawn Hall – he deserves a lot of credit for the shots that he was making – but we have to find a way to prevent him from getting 22 in the first half. We did a better job in the second half. He only scored two, so we were capable. We just didn't do a good enough job showing bodies, going vertical. We sent him to the line and gave him threes in the first half.”

The Gators found themselves down 18 within the first minute of the second half, but then came the rally. Over the next 9:45 the Gators played like the team that is capable of beating anyone in the country with one slight exception. While outscoring Auburn 26-8 to tie the game at 54-54, the Gators got off to a rocky start at the foul line. Tommy Haugh went 1-2 and Lee went 1-3.

Those misses were critical and so was a reversal of a goal tend call that erased a Haugh layup with 7:27 left. On that play, Haugh rebounded a miss by Auburn’s Elyjah Freeman, put the ball on the deck and led a one-man fast break. Murphy trailed, swatted away Haugh’s layup and it was called a goal tend. Florida 58, Auburn 56.

Or so it seemed. A media time out followed during which time Auburn coach Steven Pearl asked for and received a review. The zebra crew of Pat Adams, Olandis Poole and Lucas Santos took a look and decided it was a clean block.

“We dug ourselves in an 18-point deficit, crawled all the way back to take a two-point lead, get a tough reversal on the goaltend,” Golden said. “And they made a couple of tough shots after that, but we had dug ourselves in too big of a hole with defense in the first half and obviously the free throw shooting. As I explained to the team, if we had made our free throws at a decent rate up until that point, instead of it going from two to being tied with their ball, it would have been from six to four and we could still with a little bit of a lead and a little bit of confidence. But I do think a big part of it was the fact that we had to expend so much energy getting back in the ballgame."

From that point onward, the Gators made only 2-12 shots from the field (1-9 from the 3-point line) and 6-9 from the foul line. Auburn, meanwhile, went 8-9 from the foul line while outscoring the Gators 20-11 for the final margin.

Auburn gets credit for a hard-earned victory, but this had more to do with things Florida didn’t do than what Auburn did. Such as terrible defense in the first half and also in the paint where Auburn outscored the Gators 38-28. Such as only four offensive rebounds in the first half. Such as 37 percent shooting from the field overall along with the bad shooting at the foul and 3-point lines.

Now, Auburn had something to do with it, for sure, but the Gators had plenty enough opportunities to win the game on their own. Instead, they wasted a 27-point, 10-rebound night by Haugh, who scored 12 points, grabbed four rebounds and blocked two shots during Florida’s furious rally to tie the game in the second half.

Chinyelu, a dominant force during Florida’s 5-game winning streak that led up to the Auburn game, scored 10 but he had only seven rebounds total, just two in the first half. Alex Condon had perhaps his worst offensive game ever at UF. His only point of the game came when he hit the second of two free throws with 47.8 seconds left in the game.

So many things went wrong and yet the Gators still could have won the game.

“There's ups and downs,” Golden said. “We have been through a lot of those already this season. It obviously starts with me. Anytime you get to a point where you got things rolling a little bit and the moment you feel like you are on the right track, you get punched in the mouth. That's what happened to us today. Credit to Auburn. We have some things that we need to clean up before we get on the road to South Carolina next week.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE SEC

No. 15 Vanderbilt (17-3, 4-3 SEC) 88, Mississippi State (10-10, 2-5 SEC) 56: Tyler Tanner scored 24 points as Vandy broke a 3-game losing streak in Starkville. The Commodores put a lid on Josh Hubbard, holding him to seven points and just 1-5 from the 3-point line.

Tennessee (13-6, 3-3 SEC) 79, No. 17 Alabama (13-6, 3-3 SEC) 73: Nate Ament (29) and Ja’Kobi Gillespie (24) combined to score 53 of Tennessee’s points as the Vols got a huge road win in Tuscaloosa. Labaron Philon Jr. scored 26 to lead Alabama. Alabama brought Charles Bediako off the bench. The controversial former G-League player scored 13 while grabbing three rebounds and contributing two steals and two blocked shots.

No. 20 Arkansas (15-5, 5-2 SEC) 85, LSU (13-7, 1-6 SEC) 81: Darius Acuff Jr. hit 10 of 11 second half shots, scoring 24 of his 31 points to lead the Razorbacks past LSU. Arkansas went on a second half run when they made nine straight shots. Acufff made six of them including three threes and he had three assists on the other three Arkansas makes. Dedan Thomas scored 18 to lead LSU.  

Texas (12-8, 3-4 SEC) 87, No. 21 Georgia (16-4, 4-3 SEC) 67: Texas outscored Georgia 57-30 in the second half to score the upset in Austin. Dailyn Swain (26) and Tramon Mark (23) led Texas while Jeremiah Wilkinson led Georgia with 17.

Texas A&M (16-4, 6-1 SEC) 92, South Carolina (11-9, 2-5 SEC) 69: Zach Clemence came off the bench to score 21 as the Aggies took sole possession of first place in the SEC with their blowout win over South Carolina. Meechie Johnson scored 26 for the Gamecocks.

Kentucky (14-6, 5-2 SEC) 72, Ole Miss (11-9, 3-4 SEC) 63: The Wildcats got to the foul line for 38 shots and knocked down 28. Ole Miss was 14-21. Free throws were the difference as Otega Owey led Kentucky with 26 including 10-10 at the line. AJ Storr led Ole Miss with 20.

Missouri (14-6, 4-3 SEC) 88, Oklahoma (11-9, 1-6 SEC) 87: Two buzzer beaters saved Mizzou. Trent Pierce’s 37-foot three at the buzzer sent the game into overtime where Mark Mitchell hit a three for the win. Mitchell led Mizzou with 25 points and 10 rebounds while Nijel Pack led Oklahoma with 25.

Tuesday’s games

Kentucky (14-6, 5-2 SEC) at No. 15 Vanderbilt (17-3, 4-3 SEC)

Missouri (14-6, 4-3 SEC) at No. 17 Alabama (13-6, 3-3 SEC)

No. 20 Arkansas (15-5, 5-2 SEC) at Oklahoma (11-9, 1-6 SEC)

Tennessee (13-6, 3-3 SEC) at No. 21 Georgia (16-4, 4-3 SEC)

Wednesday’s games

No. 16 FLORIDA (14-6, 5-2 SEC) at South Carolina (11-9, 2-5 SEC)

Texas (12-5, 3-4 SEC) at Auburn (13-7, 4-3 SEC)

Mississippi State (10-10, 2-3 SEC) at LSU (13-7, 1-6 SEC)