Too many critical mistakes at inopportune times, the story of Florida's season-ending loss

Isaiah Brown shoots the free throw that put UF ahead 72-70 (Photo by Chris Spears)

TAMPA – The simple thing is to point fingers at all the mistakes that were made in the final 8.9 seconds of Florida’s shocking 73-72 loss to Iowa in the second round of the NCAA South Regional at Benchmark International Arena. Yeah, mistakes were made both defensively and offensively. Sometimes in the heat of an intense battle assignments are blown. In this case, the Gators gave up a game-winning 3-pointer with 4.5 seconds to go and then blew a chance for a last second shot or at least a foul call that would have put UF at the foul line with a chance to rectify the defensive mistake and salvage the season.

Boogie Fland blew his defensive assignment, which is why Bennett Stirtz was able to dribble down the sideline, veer toward the top of the key and then deliver the perfect bounce pass to Alvaro Folgueiras in the right corner. Once Stirtz was past midcourt with Fland trying to catch up, it was a textbook 3-on-2 situation. Tommy Haugh had to try to cut off Stirtz and that left Folgueiras wide open.

“The idea was to keep the ball out of Bennett's hands, let them throw it to somebody else,” Florida coach Todd Golden said.” So we wanted a face guard and [to make them] throw it to somebody else and then take a foul and put one of their role players in a pressure situation, but they ran a little kind of double stagger, got him loose. We just didn't make a good enough play off the ball there to stop him from getting down the court, and then we had to make a split-second decision and we just didn't make the right one.

“Again, I think we had a good plan in terms of what we were trying to do, but we didn't execute it very well. They still had to step up and make a tough shot in a big moment, and they did that.”

On Florida’s ensuing inbounds play, Xaivian Lee dribbled past midcourt and into the paint. As two Iowa defenders tried to cut him off Lee had to make a split-second decision – shoot the ball, try to draw contact for a foul or try to pass to Haugh for perhaps a game-winning dunk. He chose to pass and the ball never got to Haugh as time expired.

“Maybe I could have shot a floater or pull up or something,” Lee said. “I was going pretty fast, and I thought I had time for the dunk in, but I don't know.”

In retrospect, the game shouldn’t have come down to either a single defensive stand or a last second shot to win by the Gators. There were mistakes made in those last 8.9 seconds, but those paled in comparison to all those made in the previous 39:51. Despite falling behind by 10 points in the first half and 12 in the second, the Gators gave themselves adequate opportunities to win the game.

In the days and weeks ahead, Florida players will be asking themselves why thousands of times. Why did I not make a closeout defensively? Why did I not secure that rebound? Why did I leave that shot short? Why didn’t I knock down that free throw?

It’s all part of the pain teams go through as seasons end in this lose and go home tournament. Already 48 teams – including Florida – have fallen by the wayside. Two weeks from now only one team will be left standing. Only one team can go 6-0 and earn the NCAA title. It won’t be the Florida Gators this year. They are the eighth NCAA champ of the last nine years that didn’t make it out of the second round.

Making Florida’s pain more intense is the fact the game-winning shot was ironically made by Folgueiras, who was involved in a controversial play that almost caused an on court melee. With 8:34 remaining in the first half and the Gators trailing Iowa 19-13, Alex Condon tried to flip in a shot in the lane from about eight feet out. When the ball caromed off the rim, Folgueiras and Condon grabbed for the ball. In the struggle for control, Folgueiras went hard to the floor with Condon still holding on. Folgueiras then pounced on top and threw a punch. In the near-melee that followed, the zebra crew of Joe Lindsay, Bert Smith and Randy Richardson somehow restored order, then spent the next five minutes viewing the monitor.

Their decision: an offsetting double technical foul and Iowa basketball on the alternating possession. No flagrant foul on Folgueiras who clearly threw a punch and a technical foul on Condon for wrestling with another player for a held ball?

Asked what he was told by Lindsay, Golden said, “Yeah, I was told that he [Folgueiras] threw a punch, but it didn't connect so it didn't go any higher than a flagrant 1. I'm not exactly sure what this means and I still don't understand why Condo got a technical. They were both fighting for the ball equally. Condo was just stronger and pulled him down to the floor, but they were both grabbing the ball. It was a confusing play and I'm not really sure how they landed on that result.”

 The after-effect of this particular decision was the Gators fell further behind before they regained their composure.  The Gators were down 23-13 when their first half comeback began on a 3-pointer by Lee. That was Florida’s first make from the field since the 16:16 mark when Lee followed his own shot for a 9-8 lead. All the Gators had to show for the nearly 10 minutes before Lee popped in that three with 6:53 remaining was four free throws. 

The Gators rallied to within two on a Fland-to-Condon alley oop dunk with 1:15 left in the first half that made it a 31-29 deficit. Fland tied the game at 31-31 with. 35 seconds left but Iowa got a short jumper in the paint from Kael Combs with eight seconds left for the 33-31 halftime lead.

“We were a little loose with the basketball in the first half, some uncharacteristic turnovers that you just can't make in a game like this if you want to win,” Golden said. “We had two guys step out of bounds in the first half. We threw a ball away … unforced turnovers that showed up and some bad transition defense decisions that led to easy run outs for them.”

Considering the Gators made only five of their first 20 shots, to close out the half down just by two seemed a rather remarkable achievement. That the Gators made five of their last seven shots made it seem as if they were poised to play the final 20 minutes like a team on a mission, but the warm and fuzzies of the final 4:08 gave way to more of the same old, same old to start the second half.

In the opening 5:29 of the second half, the Gators dug another deep hole to trail 51-39. The Gators were like a punch-drunk boxer leaning on the ropes to keep from being kayoed when a three from Haugh with 13:54 left snapped the Gators out of their funk and got the Florida juices flowing again.

Haugh’s three set off a 17-6 run in which the Gators went from 12 down to a one-point deficit (57-56) that got the crowd back into it. The Gators regained the lead for the first time since the first five minutes of the first half on back-to-back dunks by Isaiah Brown and Condon made it 60-58. A three by Haugh and a driving layup with 5:36 to go put the Gators ahead by four, 65-61.

The Gators had momentum that made it feel it was 2025 all over again. In both the semifinals and championship game in San Antonio, the Gators rallied from 12-point deficits to win. Texas Tech, which led the Gators by 10 late in the Elite Eight game, was in the house in Tampa awaiting a game for the Midwest Sweet 16 with Alabama. Memories of last year's Texas Tech game only fueled expectations that Florida had what it took to hammer home a win.

I thought we did a good job after they got out to that 12-point lead with 14 minutes to go,” Golden said. “Obviously we played really well the last 14 minutes, but we dug ourselves too big of a hole.”

The momentum-killer was an open three from the left wing by Cooper Koch with 4:17 left. For reasons unknown, the Gators kept leaving him wide open from beyond the 3-point stripe in the second half and he made them pay by hitting four of his five long distance jump shots.

Twice in the final four minutes, the Gators built 3-point leads but Iowa wouldn’t go away. Florida led 71-70 with 57 seconds left but Iowa’s scrambling defense left Haugh throwing up a highly contested air ball three that the Gators saved from going out of bounds with 35 seconds left. With 4.3 left on the shot clock, the Gators rushed another three off the inbounds pass.

The Gators came up with a defensive stand that forced a missed leaner in the paint by Stirtz with 8.9 seconds to go. When Isaiah Brown grabbed the rebound, Iowa fouled him immediately. It was a two-shot foul, but Brown missed the first of the two before knocking down the second one to put UF ahead 72-70.

Then came those last 8.9 seconds and two critical mistakes that ended Florida’s hopes of a repeat national championship. First there was the defensive mistake that put the Gators behind with 4.5 seconds to go but that was still manageable. In college basketball, that much time is an eternity.

When Lee passed midcourt on the dribble the better decision would have been to put up the last shot, but he deferred, thinking a dunk would have ended it with a Florida win.

"I would have preferred him to obviously get to the rim on that,” Golden said. “I thought he had a good advantage on the guy that was defending him. His defender was not in legal guarding position, so I feel like if he would have kind of jumped back into the body and shot a layup, we would have either scored it or got fouled, but a split-second decision, he's out on the floor, and he obviously played a really good game for us tonight. We've got to live with the results on that, but I thought he did a good job getting around his guy. I would have loved to have seen him go finish it."

Decisions have consequences and in this case the decision to dump the ball to Haugh doomed the chances of the Gators getting to the Sweet 16. Florida became the eighth national championship team in the last nine years that couldn’t get to the second weekend.

It shouldn’t have been that way.

SUNDAY’S NCAA SECOND ROUND SCORES

South/Tampa

9 Iowa (23-12) 73, 1 FLORIDA (27-8) 72 (Iowa advances to the Sweet 16)

Midwest/Tampa

4 Alabama (25-9) 90, 5 Texas Tech (23-11) 65 (Alabama advances to the Sweet 16)

Midwest/St. Louis

2 Iowa State (29-7) 82. 7 Kentucky (22-14) 63 (Iowa State advances to the Sweet 16)

Midwest/Philadelphia

6 Tennessee (24-11) 79, 3 Virginia (30-6) 72 (Tennessee advances to the Sweet 16)

East/Philadelphia

2 UConn (31-5) 73, UCLA (24-12) 57 (UConn advances to the Sweet 16)

East/San Diego

5 St. John’s (30-6) 67, 4 Kansas (24-11) 65 (St. John's advances to the Sweet 16)

West/San Diego

1 Arizona (34-2) 78, 9 Utah State (29-7) 66 (Arizona advances to the Sweet 16)

West/St. Louis

2 Purdue (29-8) 79, 7 Miami (26-9) 62 (Purdue advances to the Sweet 16)