Gators take over the top spot in the SEC with quirky win over Vanderbilt

Xaivian Lee launches a three from the wing against Vandy (UAA Photo)

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – Nobody can say they weren’t warned.

For weeks now, Todd Golden has been telling us that one of these days the Gators are going to start making shots and when they do, they’re going to be a VERY dangerous basketball team. The warning came to fruition Saturday afternoon at Memorial Gymnasium and it involved three rather unexpected quirks that made 19^th-ranked Florida’s 98-94 win over 10^th-ranked Vanderbilt all the more delicious.

Quirk No. 1, or should we say Quirk No. 99? Xaivian Lee, a sometimes conservative non-shooter, who scored only four points and went 0-6 from the 3-point line Tuesday night in Norman, got his groove back, oddly wearing No. 99 quite by accident.

Right after breakfast at the team hotel Saturday morning, Lee and Boogie Fland went to their room to take their customary pre-game nap only to be interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Jordy Jacobsen was banging on the door and like, what do you want?’” Lee explained after a 20-point, six rebound, three assist and no turnover game that included 3-7 shooting from the 3-point line. Prior to Saturday, Lee was 27-108 from the 3-point line for the entire season. “He comes in, he’s like, “Bad news fellas.’”

Lee’s No. 1 jersey and Fland’s No. 0 went missing and somehow didn’t make the trip to Nashville.

“I’m like, all right, screw it,” Lee said. And with that he became No. 99 and Fland became No. 33.

Was it simply a very good player finally broke out of a season-long shooting slump? Or was it the change in number that did the trick? Whatever it was, it turned Lee into a stiletto the plunged deeply into the heart of the Commodores (16-2, 3-2 SEC), who lost their second game this week after a 16-0 start.

If Todd Golden were to vote, he would make the change to No. 99 permanent.

“We woke up this morning and didn’t have them (correct jerseys), so we scratched and found a way to make it happen anyways,” Golden said after the Gators won their fourth straight game, improving to 13-5 overall and 4-1 in the Southeastern Conference. “And, you know, I would like you (Lee) to wear 99 the rest of the year.”

Fland didn’t have the scoring night that Lee had, but his contributions went far beyond his seven points, three assists and one steal. Vandy tried to press and harass him the entire game, but he turned it over only once. When your starting backcourt combines for 27 points, six rebounds, six assists, one steal and only one turnover, you make full court pressure insignificant, which is what Lee and Fland did.

Quirk No. 2 came with 12:59 remaining in the first half. Isaiah Brown, inserted in the game for the first time with 14:07 left before the intermission, got his feet set in the corner when someone on the Vanderbilt coaching staff made a huge mistake.

“It all started when the coach of the other team said, ‘Don’t guard him,’” Brown recalled. “And I was like, wow, that’s extremely disrespectful, so that first shot, I knew that was going in because my confidence was already high.”

Ball in hand and left wide open, Brown buried the three. He launched another three with 8:41 left in the game that put the Gators ahead 74-73. He also scored on an astonishing dunkback just before halftime in which he flew in from the baseline and one-handed a jam that rattled the rim. He drew the fifth foul on Vandy's Duke Miles with 4:14 left and rather nonchalantly knocked down both free throws. He was a perfect 6-for=6 for the game.

 Isaiah Brown scored a career high 14 points. He also had four rebounds, one assist, a blocked shot and a steal. Not too bad for a guy the other team considered nothing more than a harmless distraction.

Quirk No. 3 and maybe the one that proved most harmful to Vandy came early in the second half with the Gators trailing, 49-44. Rueben Chinyelu was fouled by Tyler Nickel while going up for a shot. Chinyelu took way too much contact from Vandy’s Devin McGlockton, so Golden asked for and got a review. After a lengthy look by the three officials and the people at the SEC replay center, a flagrant was called on McGlockton. Four free throws and possession to the Gators.

Chinyelu was ice from the foul line, draining all four shots to trim the Vandy lead to a single point (49-48). On the ensuing inbound, Tommy Haugh drilled a three from the corner to complete what amounted to a 7-point play.

Those four free throws were a wakeup call for Chinyelu, who managed only four points and four rebounds in the first half. He went beast mode in the second, scoring 16 of his 20 points. He was too strong and too powerful for Vandy’s bigs, finishing the game with another double-double (10 rebounds) to go with three assists and three blocked shots.

Golden and his assistants made it a point at the half to emphasize getting the ball down low to Chinyelu.

“At halftime, we talked as a staff about making sure we got him some low block touches, because it calms us down and it slows the game down,” Golden said. “It makes the tempo of the game kind of more the way we want to play. So, first half is more on me and the coaching staff for not getting him more touches. In the second half when we did, he took advantage of those opportunities.”

And still it came down to white knuckles at the end. The Gators did a very good job of running Tyler Tanner, Duke Miles and Nickel off the 3-point line. They were a combined 5-14 but they’re high volume 3-point shooters. Florida’s strategy was take the threes away and make them shoot tough twos.

To Vandy’s credit, the Commodores made a lot of contested 2-point shots, but in the final minute of the game, the Gators got critical stops. Lee’s three from the wing with 45 seconds left gave the Gators the lead for good, 95-94, but Vandy had a chance to regain the lead but the Commodores couldn't squeeze off a shot. With a fraction less than 19 seconds remaining, AK Okereke got the ball in the paint, about 10 feet from the rim, where he was met by Chinyelu, Haugh and Condon. Someone in Florida’s big blue wall poked the ball away and in the scramble for the loose ball it went out of bounds off the diving hands of Tanner. Florida basketball, 18.1 seconds left.

When the Gators got the ball inbounds, Lee was fouled immediately by Tanner. Lee made the first, but missed the second foul shot. Nickel rebounded for Vandy, hustled the ball out to Tanner who took it straight to the rack where he was met by Chinyelu. He threw up a wild shot high off the glass that Condon rebounded. Fouled immediately, Condon hit both free throws for a 4-point margin with 6.1 seconds remaining.

Vandy got the ball down four. Time for one last shot and the prayer that someone on the Gators would do something stupid like foul. Prayers fell on deaf ears. Nickel fired up a three, hit back iron and Chinyelu rebounded. Celebration time for the Gators on the bench who waved and blew kisses at the Vandy student section which had spent the entire game taunting. On the court five exhausted Gators walked off having secured the win that puts them at the top of the SEC heap.

Make no mistake about it, this win was huge for the Gators. Two Saturdays ago in Columbia, Missouri, , they looked like a team gasping for air against a team that had come up with a formula to turn the Gators very ordinary. Four games later, they are far from ordinary and clearly the best team in the Southeastern Conference.

Florida’s front line foursome of Chinyelu, Haugh, Condon and Micah Handlogten is undoubtedly the best in the SEC and probably the entire country. They did their damage to Vandy and there wasn’t much the Commodores could do to stop them. In addition to Chinyelu’s gaudy numbers, Haugh had 18 points, eight rebounds and two assists. He hit 2-5 from the 3-point line. Condon had 16 points, eight rebounds, one assist and one blocked shot despite playing a good portion of the second half in foul trouble.

With the big guys in dominant form, the Gators outrebounded Vanderbilt, 40-26, their fourth straight game in which they have outrebounded opponents by 10 or more. In winning the last four, the Gators have outrebounded opponents 180-122.

Led by Lee, whose stepback three with 45 seconds left was the shot of the game, the Gators went 9-24 (37.5 percent) from the 3-point line. Coming into the game, the Gators were hitting just 27.7 percent for the entire season.

“Florida played well,” Vandy coach Mark Byington said. “Right now they’re playing as well as any team in the country. “… What kind of got us tonight was they had guys who don’t make threes make threes tonight.”

The Gators did make threes. They also made plenty of twos. This was a clear sign of what this team will look like if the shooters can make enough threes to prevent opponents from backing off and packing the lane.

With Fland and Lee handling the ball, no one is going to find much success pressing them. With the big guys dominating the rebounding, Florida is going to get plenty of possessions. Thirteen offensive rebounds led to 22 second chance points. Vanderbilt had only eight.

The Gators won by four. They made 25 free throws (30 attempts) to Vanderbilt’s 20 (22 attempts). There is your difference in the game right there.

From an offensive standpoint, this will go down as Florida’s best game of the season since it was against a top ten opponent. The Gators were good enough to put up 44 points in the first half, but in the second they torched the Commodores for 54.

"We showed a lot of grit and toughness today,” Golden said. “It wasn't perfect, but we did a great job on the boards. Credit to Reuben in the second half, and X (Xaivian) Lee late in the game, stepping up, doing what you need guys to do to win a game like this, hitting big shots that aren't necessarily drawn up, just players making plays. And our guys did that today.”

ELSEWHERE IN THE SEC

No. 18 Alabama (13-5, 3-2 SEC) 83, Oklahoma (11-7, 1-4 SEC) 81: Alabama got 23 points, five rebounds and four assists from Labaron Philon to overcome Oklahoma, which was led by Xzayvier Brown with 21.

No. 21 Georgia (15-3, 3-2 SEC) 90, No. 17 Arkansas (13-5, 3-2 SEC) 76: Georgia got a top 25 win with Jeremiah Wilkinson scoring 20 and Blue Cain 18. Arkansas big guys were dominated by Somto Cyril who blocked seven shots. Darius Acuff Jr. scored 20 for Arkansas.

Kentucky (12-6, 3-2 SEC) 80, No. 24 Tennessee (12-6, 2-3 SEC) 78: Former Gator Denzel Aberdeen scored 18 of his 22 points in the second half as Kentucky erased a 17-point deficit to knock off Tennessee in Knoxville. Ja’Kobi Gillespie scored 24 to lead the Vols.

Texas A&M (14-4, 4-1 SEC) 74, Texas (11-7, 2-3 SEC) 70: Rashaun Agee had 17 points and 11 rebounds for the Aggies, who are now tied with Florida on top of the SEC standings. Jordan Pope and Dailyn Swain each scored 17 for Texas.

LSU (13-5, 1-4 SEC) 78, Missouri (13-5, 3-2 SEC) 70: Marquel Sutton scored 26 points as LSU got its first SEC win over Mizzou, which was led by Jayden Stone with 20

Auburn (11-7, 2-3 SEC) 71, South Carolina (10-8, 1-4 SEC) 67: Filip Jovi came of the bench to score 23 points to lead Auburn by South Carolina, which was led by Meechie Johnson with 17.

Ole Miss (11-7, 3-2 SEC) 68, Mississippi State (10-8, 2-3 SEC) 67: Patton Pinkins 15-foot jumper with 19 seconds left lifted Ole Miss past Mississippi State. Ilias Kamardine and AJ Storr each scored 17 points for Ole Miss. The game was marred by miserable shooting. Ole Miss was 2-20 from the 3-point line while Mississippi State was 5-20.

Tuesday’s games

LSU (13-5, 1-4 SEC) at No. 19 FLORIDA (13-5, 4-1 SEC)

No. 10 Vanderbilt (16-2, 3-2 SEC) at No. 17 Arkansas (13-5, 3-2 SEC)

No. 21 Georgia (15-3, 3-2 SEC) at Missouri (13-5, 3-2 SEC)

Auburn (11-7, 2-2 SEC) at Ole Miss (11-7, 3-2 SEC)

Oklahoma (11-7, 1-4 SEC) at South Carolina (10-8, 1-4 SEC)

Wednesday’s games

Texas (11-7, 2-3 SEC) at Kentucky (12-6, 3-2 SEC)

Mississippi State (10-8, 2-3 SEC) at Texas A&M (14-4, 4-1 SEC)