Just another day at the office as Gators torch Horns in 2nd half

Haugh had a gimpy leg but toughed it out -- like the SEC POY he should be. (UAA photo)

Tommy Haugh, who is either No. 1 or No. 1A in the race for Southeastern Conference Player of the Year, had a game to forget Wednesday night when 7^th-ranked Florida traveled to Austin to face a Texas team scrambling to solidify its NCAA résumé. Five points, his first game without a three since early in the non-conference schedule, no rebounds and a tweaked ankle although he did have a couple of nice blocked shots. 

Okay, one guy off, no problem. Well, sort of. Rueben Chinyelu, the nation’s leading rebounder, was in some kind of funk. It wasn’t so much what Texas was doing to stop him as much as it seemed he struggled to get his act together. Like Haugh, he had a game worth forgetting, five points, four rebounds and four fouls. He did have a couple of blocked shots and a couple of steals.  

Normally, when two high profile players like have their worst games of the year on the same night on the road against a Quad 1 opponent, you can chalk it up as a loss. Well, the Gators aren’t exactly your normal team.   

Normal teams crash and burn. For the Gators (22-6, 13-2 SEC), who are proving to be anything but normal, it’s just another day at the office as Texas found out when the Longhorns finished on the short end of an 84-71 score.

For a half and the first 13-and-a-half minutes of the second half, the Gators played like the odds of winning on the road had caught up with them. It was white knuckles all the way. Texas led 39-36 at the break and it was 64-61 when Jordan Pope blew by everyone for a layup with 7:27 to go.

That’s when the Gators decided enough is enough. Almost as if they simply flipped a beast mode switch to go on a pillaging and plundering rampage, the Gators outscored Texas 23-7 the rest of the way. It was brutal. The Gators clicked on both ends of the court and Texas had no way to match the Gators intensity and efficiency. 

It took 1:06 off the clock for the Gators to go from three down to four up, taking the lead for good on a pair of Boogie Fland free throws and an Alex Condon fast break layup on an assist by Isaiah Brown. With a 68-64 lead, the Gator created breathing room on a 7-1 mini-run highlighted by a 3-pointer from Fland with 4:16 to go that expanded the lead to 10, 75-65.

From that point onward the Gators kept stomping out any signs of life from the Longhorns. For a team that seemed to have the Gators on the ropes with 7:27 left in the game, the Longhorns looked like more road kill for a Florida team that has won seven straight SEC games away from Gainesville, the last five by at least 13 points.

Impressive to say the very least.

“I thought we did a good job down the stretch of extending the lead and not giving them any hope or any belief in the last two minutes that they'd come back,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “This is a huge win for us going down the stretch in conference play." 

The win kept the Gators two full games ahead of Arkansas (21-7, 11-4 SEC) and Alabama (21-7, 11-4 SEC) in the race for the Southeastern Conference regular season championship. With three games to go before the SEC Tournament in Nashville, any combination of one Florida win and one loss each by Arkansas and Alabama will give the Gators their first conference championship since 2014.

Not bad for a team that got such little production out of Haugh and Chinyelu. While they struggled to get anything going, the rest of Golden’s 8-man rotation simply picked up the slack starting with Condon and Fland.

Condon posted his third straight game with 20 or more points. His stat line read 23 points on 10-12 shooting from the field, a second straight game with a 3-pointer, four rebounds, three assists and four blocked shots.

Fland, that same guy who couldn’t find the 3-point ocean from the end of the pier for most of the season, went 2-3 on his threes. He’s hit 5-9 on threes in his last two games. Fland made 7-10 shots from the field, 6-6 from the foul line, grabbed five rebounds and came up with a couple of steals.

Xaivian Lee, who like Fland could have qualified for a union card the way he was laying bricks from the 3-point line prior to the Auburn game, also went 2-3 from three. In his last five games he’s 11-26 (42.3 percent) from the 3-point line. Lee finished with 12 points, three rebounds, six assists and a steal. 

Off the bench, Brown had nine points, eight rebounds, two assists and a blocked shot. He was 4-6 from the field and 1-2 from three. Urban Klavzar scored eight, hitting 2-5 of his threes. Since the Auburn loss he’s 21-42 on 3-pointers.

"When our guards are banging shots like that, we're going to be really tough to beat, and it allowed us to run away from them down the stretch,” Golden said.

With Haugh and Chinyelu magnets for foul calls from the zebra crew of Courtney Green, K.B. Burnett and Brian Dorsey, Micah Handlogten logged 16 minutes off the bench. The stat line – 0 points, two rebounds, one assist, two blocked shots and two steals – doesn’t accurately measure his effect. Texas 7-footer Matas Vokietaitis scored eight points and dominated the paint in the first half. In the second, much of it with Handlogten guarding him, he scored only four.

"I thought there was a little bit of a moment where we were starting to get some steals, some runouts, and kind of hurt their spirit a little bit,” Golden said. “I think our depth really showed up. I thought our bench did a great job. I thought Micah Handlogten had one of his best defensive games of the year. I thought we wore them down, made it a little more difficult for them to execute, and we took advantage of it. We were making a lot of shots on the stretch, also."

The defense did wear down the Longhorns. In taking the 39-36 halftime lead, Texas hit an even 50 percent from the field (15-30 overall, 4-8 on threes). In the second half, the Longhorns were 10-28 overall and 1-5 on threes. The Gators ran them off the 3-point line and forced them to take tough twos instead.

In the second half, the Gators blocked eight Texas shots while forcing eight turnovers. In the matter of a half, the Gators went from well below average into beast mode defense, choking off the same shots the Longhorns were making in the first 20 minutes of the game.

“They outplayed us in the first half,” Golden said. “We obviously challenged our guys pretty strongly at halftime about guarding your yard and doing a better job on the defensive end and obviously that flipped us. We guarded really, really well in the second half, held them to 35 (percent) from the field, only let them make one three." 

When the Gators defend like they did in the second half they are as tough to beat as any team in the country. When the Gators defend and the guards are making shots like they have done these last two games, Florida is almost unbeatable.

Now, imagine what it will be like when Haugh and Chinyelu are playing at peak levels.

ELSEWHERE IN THE SEC

No. 17 Alabama (21-7, 11-4 SEC) 100, Mississippi State (13-15, 5-10 SEC) 75: Alabama raced out to a 63-33 halftime lead in winning its seventh straight game. The Crimson Tide went 22-50 from the 3-point line with freshman Amari Allen going 6-7 as part of his 23-point night. Achor Achor scored 18 for Mississippi State. 

No. 20 Arkansas (21-7, 11-4 SEC) 99, Texas A&M (19-9, 9-6 SEC) 84: The Razorbacks fell behind 11-2 out of the gate, but roared back on a 27-7 run and never looked back. Arkansas, which remains two games behind SEC leader Florida, still has a mathematical shot at the regular season league championship. Billy Richmond scored 23 and Darius Acuff Jr. 22 for Arkansas while Zach Clemence scored 29 off the bench for the Aggies. 

No. 25 Vanderbilt (22-6, 9-6 SEC) 88, Georgia (19-9, 7-8 SEC) 80: Vanderbilt jumped out to a 31-14 first half lead then held off a furious second half Georgia rally that saw the Bulldogs close to within three. Six Vandy players scored in double figures led by Devin McGlockton who had 10 rebounds to go with his 17 points. Jeremiah Wilkinson went off for 28 points including 5-9 from the 3-point line to pace Georgia.

LSU (15-13, 3-12 SEC) 106, Ole Miss (11-17, 3-12 SEC)  99, 2OT: Max Mackinnon scored a season-high 33 points and LSU went 11-21 from the 3-point line as LSU broke a 5-game losing streak at Oxford. Ilias Kamardine scored 26 points and grabbed 10 rebounds for Ole Miss, which has lost 10 straight games. With one win in the last three, LSU can be assured of no worse than a break even season.

Saturday’s SEC games

No. 20 Arkansas (21-7, 11-4 SEC) at No. 7 FLORIDA (22-6, 13-2 SEC)

No. 17 Alabama (21-7, 11-4 SEC) at No. 22 Tennessee (20-8, 10-5 SEC)

No. 25 Vanderbilt (22-6, 9-6 SEC) at Kentucky (18-10, 9-6 SEC)

Texas (17-11, 8-7 SEC) at Texas A&M (19-9, 9-6 SEC)

Missouri (19-9, 9-6 SEC) at Mississippi State (13-15, 5-10 SEC)

South Carolina (12-16, 3-12 SEC) at Georgia (19-9, 7-8 SEC)

Ole Miss (11-17, 3-12 SEC) at Auburn (15-13, 6-9 SEC)

Oklahoma (14-14, 4-11 SEC) at LSU (15-13, 3-12 SEC) 

National top 25 plus SEC in kenpom.com analytics: 1. Duke 25-2; 2. Michigan 26-2; 3. Arizona 26-2; 4. Illinois 22-6; 5. FLORIDA 22-6; 6. Houston 23-5; 7. Purdue 22-5; 8. Iowa State 24-4; 9. UConn 26-3; 10. Gonzaga 28-2; 11. Michigan State 22-5; 12. Nebraska 24-4; 13. Vanderbilt 22-6; 14. Virginia 25-3; 15. Kansas 21-7; 16. Texas Tech 21-7; 17. Arkansas 21-7; 18. Louisville 20-8; 19. Alabama 21-7; 20. Tennessee 20-8; 21. BYU 20-8; 22. St. John’s 22-6; 23. Iowa 20-8; 24. Saint Mary’s 26-4; 25. Utah State (SEC: 30. Kentucky 18-10; 31. Texas 17-10; 35. Georgia 19-9; 36. Texas A&M 19-9; 37. Auburn 15-13; 51. Missouri 19-9; 52. LSU 15-13; 56. Oklahoma 14-14; 84. Ole Miss; 11-17; 88. Mississippi State 13-15; 93. South Carolina 12-16

National top 25 plus SEC in barttorvik.com analytics: Michigan 26-2; 2. Duke 26-2; 3. Arizona 26-2; 4. FLORIDA 22-6; 5. Illinois 22-6; 6. Houston 23-5; 7. Purdue 22-5; 8. UConn 26-3; 9. Iowa State 24-4; 10. Texas Tech 21-7; 11. Kansas 21-7; 12. Vanderbilt 22-6; 13. Virginia 25-3; 14. Gonzaga 28-2; 15. Nebraska 24-4; 16. Michigan State 22-5; 17. Tennessee 20-8; 18. Louisville 20-8; 19. Alabama 21-7; 20. Arkansas 21-7; 21. St. John’s 22-6; 22. Iowa 20-8; 23. North Carolina 22-6; 24. Saint Mary’s 26-4; 25. North Carolina State 19-9 (SEC: 34. Texas A&M 19-9; 40. Kentucky 18-10; 41. Auburn 15-13; 42. Texas 17-11; 44. Georgia 19-9; 47. Missouri 19-9; 54. Oklahoma 14-14; 63. LSU 15-13; 87. Ole Miss 11-17; 88. Mississippi State 13-15; 99. South Carolina 12-16