OMAHA,
Neb. -- It was less than two weeks ago that the following question was put to
Florida coach Billy Donovan and a couple members of his basketball team during
a media session heading into the Southeastern Conference Tournament.
Do
you get the sense that your season is slipping away?
Donovan
didn't think so then. Probably doesn't think so now, either.
The
2011-12 season, in fact, is looking pretty sweet.
As in
Sweet 16.
Junior
guard Kenny Boynton led five UF players into double figures, scoring 20
points, grabbing a career-high eight rebounds and doing his part for a defense
that suffocated surprising 15th-seeded Norfolk State in a wire-to-wire a 84-50
mutilation in the second-round game of a West Region showdown that was over
barely after it started.
Runs of
25-zip in the first half will do that.
Senior
point guard Erving Walker scored 15 points, freshman guard Bradley Beal had 14
points, nine rebounds and three assists and junior forward Erik Murphy had 10
points and eight rebounds. UF hit 52.8 percent for the game, but just as key
was holding Norfolk, which ran circles around No. 2-seed and second-ranked
Missouri in an epic upset Friday, to just 27.3 percent overall and a measly
16.7 from 3-point range.
For the
Spartans, it was quite a contrast from the plus-50 shooting sprees they hung on
Mizzou less than 48 hours earlier.
But as
one person said in Florida’s celebrating locker room afterward, “Cinderella
isn’t a very good fairy tale, anyway.”
With the
win, the seventh-seeded and 25th-ranked Gators (25-10) advanced to their second
straight Sweet 16, drawing a matchup with No. 3 seed and 11th-ranked Marquette
(27-7) in the regional semifinals Thursday night at America West Arena in
Phoenix.
“What do
I think about it?” sophomore said Patric Young queried after being asked about
the Sweet 16. “It’s not far enough.”
Make
that two blowouts by a combined 59 points (UF beat 10-seed Virginia by 25
Friday). Not bad for a team that lost four of its last five games before
learning of its NCAA fate last weekend.
“I think
we have a lot more things we’re capable of doing,” Beal said.
The
Gators did everything they set out to do against Norfolk State (26-10). The
objectives going in were to harass 6-foot-10, 240-pound center Kyle O’Quinn,
who scored 25 points and grabbed 15 rebounds against Missouri, with double-teams,
but also be in good enough defensive position to recover and prevent the
Spartans from having another 3-point barrage like the 10-for-19 night they
rained at the Tigers’ expense.
Results:
O’Quinn finished with four points on 1-for-9 shooting and grabbed three
rebounds; and the Spartans went 4-for-24 from the arc.
“Hats
off to Florida. They're a very, very good basketball team,” said Norfolk State
coach Anthony Evans, who Friday became one of six coaches in NCAA history to
lead a 15th-seeded team to a tournament victory. “They came out and executed
well. They prevented us from doing things we wanted to do.”
An
old-fashion 3-point play by Norfolk’s Rodney McCauley actually had the Spartans
up 6-4 nearly four minutes into the game. Then Boynton, struggling of late with
his shot, buried a 3-pointer to give the Gators a 7-6 edge at the 16:12
mark.
The next
Spartans points came at 9:30 of the half. By then, the Gators had scored 25
unanswered, including additional treys from Beal, two from Murphy and another
from Walker to take a 28-6 lead.
“I’d
never been part of anything like that before,” Walker said.
For what
it’s worth (not much), Norfolk State twice cut the margin to 22, but backup
guard Mike Rosario (12 points, 5-for-7 from the floor) drained a 3-pointer at
the halftime buzzer and sent the teams to the locker room with the Gators up
47-19 and fans around the nation wondering when TNT was going to switch to a
competitive game.
“They
could have come out and played us like they did Missouri, if we didn’t match
their intensity,” Boynton said. “But we matched it and that was the biggest
thing.”
The
Florida coaches (specifically assistant Matt McCall, who as assigned the Norfolk
scout last week when the brackets were released) had a plan. It was presented,
deployed and executed to perfection.
“It was
a great win,” said Donovan, who improved his career NCAA record to 27-9, a
winning percentage of .750 that ranks third among the nation’s active coaches.
“I was proud of the effort these guys put in over the last 24 hours to get
prepared to play.”
They’ll
have longer than that to get ready for Marquette and Big East Player of the
Year Jae Crowder.
“I don’t
really know much about them,” backup guard Scottie Wilbekin said. “But I do
know we’re probably playing our best basketball of the season.”
And if
this is a season that’s slipping, let the slide continue.
