NEW ORLEANS -- After most games, a box score explains
everything. At least it’s supposed to. Why one team got the victory; why the other
got the defeat. And it’s usually pretty easy to sift through the key numbers
and figure it out.
But the scoring sheet from Florida’s 66-63 dogfight win over Alabama in
Friday’s second round of the Southeastern Conference Tournament in front of
18,207 at New Orleans Arena was about as simple to dissect as a sudoku.
OK, maybe not an extra hard one, but you get the idea.
UF assistant John Pelphrey did.
“I don’t know how we won the game,” Pelphrey shrugged coming out of the locker
room, mere minutes after Crimson Tide guard Trevor Lacey’s game-tying 3-point
shot banged off the rim as time expired. “Probably the way we protected the
ball. And free throws. We made ‘em.”
Florida turned the ball over just five times, including just once after
halftime, and knocked down 16 of 19 free throws for the game, including 11 of
12 in the second half, none bigger than Kenny Boynton’s two with 9.8 seconds
left to give UF a three-point cushion.
“It was a grind,” senior point guard Erving Walker said. “But we made the plays
at the end.”
That Florida managed to claim its first victory in 17 days was significant, as
the Gators (23-9) snapped a three-game losing streak and into Saturday’s
tournament semifinals against -- drum roll, please -- top-seeded and No. 1-ranked
Kentucky (31-1), which defeated LSU 60-51 in the day’s first quarterfinal.
The mighty Wildcats defeated the Gators 74-59 on Sunday, but a second crack in
less than a week at the favorites to win the national championship was welcome.
