Bad day at the office; Gators fall to Ole Miss, 103-85

Think of what happened in Oxford as a bad day at the office for the Florida Gators (10-5, 0-2 SEC).

Even on a night when the Gators didn’t shoot the ball particularly well, they still put 85 points on the board. This was in spite of getting 16 of their shots rejected, nine by 7-5 Jamarion Sharp, who, when he wasn’t swatting away Florida shots was intimidating anyone who came remotely close.

The problem wasn’t scoring. The problem was trying to stop the Ole Miss Rebels (14-1, 1-1 SEC), especially in the second half. The Gators trailed by as many as nine points in the first half before whittling away to trail 44-40 at the break.

Then came the second half and disaster. Ole Miss shot the ball well (47.6 percent) in the first half. In the second half it seemed the Rebels couldn’t miss no matter what they threw up at the rim. The Rebels hit a scorching 75 percent on 21-28 shooting in the second half to take a 103-85 win that wasn’t nearly as close as the 18-point margin would seem.

“Credit to Ole Miss, the way they came out in the second half I thought they made a lot of really tough shots early, specifically [Allen] Flanigan hit two or three of those baseline fadeaways,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “Those are shots that we want him to take, and you’ve got to tip your cap that he was able to knock them down. Once it snowballed a little bit, I didn’t think we did a good job pulling ourselves out. Obviously, our defensive effort tonight was atrocious, specifically in the second half. Again, this was a team that was coming off a really tough loss, and they responded really well. This was our first road game in the SEC, and we didn’t handle it very well.”

No, the Gators didn’t handle things well. They got off to a decent start, taking a 17-12 lead on a 3-pointer by Walter Clayton Jr. with 13:38 left in the first half. The Gators were up 18-16 at the under-12 media timeout with 11:38 to go but that’s when things started going sideways.

Led by freshman point guard Jaylen Murray, who hit two 3-pointers, Ole Miss went on a 13-4 run to take a 29-20 lead with 7:34 to go. The Gators fought back to within four several times in the final seven minutes, but each time they closed the gap, Ole Miss went on a short burst to maintain control.

Still, it was only four at the half despite the Gators inability to score inside the paint on Sharp. But as tough as Sharp was protecting the rim in the first half, he completely dominated the inside in the second. Six of his nine blocked shots came in the final 20 minutes.

The Gators kept attacking the rim, but Sharp and his buddies either blocked the shots or forced the Gators to miss badly. Florida finished the night a miserable 18-42 (27.8 percent) on layups. Florida didn’t shoot all that well from the outside (13-33) but it was far superior to what the Gators were getting on the inside.

Ole Miss, meanwhile, couldn’t seem to miss. Jaemyn Brakefield scored 14 points in each half, finishing the game with 11-16 from the field and 2-4 from the 3-point line. Matt Murrell hit all five of his second half shots including 3-3 from the 3-point line for a 23-point night. Flanigan, who went 2-7 from the field in the first half, was perfect on all four second half shots as he finished the game with 17 points.

Complicating matters, the Gators turned the ball over 13 times which led to 24 Ole Miss points. The Gators, meanwhile, forced only eight Ole Miss turnovers, converting them into eight points.

“We didn’t handle their backcourt pressure very well at times with those turnovers,” Golden said. “They do a good job guarding with physicality. We didn’t get rewarded very well for taking it to the rim. Obviously, [Jamarion] Sharp did a good job with his rim protection, nine blocks, but I thought we did a good job of attacking and some of those I thought maybe could’ve been fouls. But again, they just got us tonight, bottom line, end of story, especially in the second half. Like I said, we cut it to four at half, and they went 21-for-28 in the second half. It’s just terrible defense, but at the same time you’ve got to tip your cap to them making all those shots.”

The Gators finished the night hitting 31-75 overall from the field (41.3 percent) but only 5-17 from the 3-point line. There were plenty of opportunities – the Gators outrebounded Ole Miss 44-34 and 26 UF rebounds came on the offensive end – but the Gators couldn’t get the second chance points they needed.

Of Florida’s 75 shots from the field, 37 came from Clayton (9-21) and Zyon Pullin (6-16). Clayton finished with 23 points while Pullin had 18. Tyrese Samuel had 11 but he managed only three rebounds. Freshman Alex Condon came off the bench to score 11 and he hauled in a game-high 15 rebounds.

Asked if there were any positives to take away from the Gators’ effort, Golden responded, “Not really in the second half. I think in the first half when the lead got to nine, we were able to cut that thing down. I thought we played with good poise at the end of the half to cut it to four and had the ball coming out [of the half]. But turnovers starting the second half kind of set the tone, and we didn’t do a good job of battling that way. So nothing that I can take right now that I’m excited about or happy about.”

Next up for the Gators is a Saturday home encounter with Arkansas (9-6, 0-2 SEC) at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center (4 p.m., ESPN).

Wednesday’s scores: Ole Miss (14-1, 1-1 SEC) 103, FLORIDA (10-5, 0-2 SEC) 85; Mississippi State (12-3, 1-1 SEC) 77, No. 5 Tennessee (11-4, 1-1 SEC) 72; Georgia (12-3, 2-0 SEC) 76, Arkansas (9-6, 0-2 SEC) 66

Saturday’s games: Arkansas (9-6, 0-2 SEC) at FLORIDA (10-5, 0-2 SEC); No. 5 Tennessee (11-4, 1-1 SEC) at Georgia (12-3, 2-0 SEC); No. 6 Kentucky (12-2, 2-0 SEC) at Texas A&M (9-6, 0-2 SEC); LSU (10-5, 2-0 SEC) at No. 16 Auburn (13-2, 2-0 SEC); Vanderbilt (5-10, 0-2 SEC) at Ole Miss (14-1, 1-1 SEC); South Carolina (13-2, 1-1 SEC) at Missouri (8-7, 0-2 SEC); Alabama (10-5, 2-0 SEC) at Mississippi State (12-3, 1-1 SEC)