TAMPA, Fla. -- In preparing last week for a big ESPN game against
nationally ranked Big Ten power Wisconsin, the Florida Gators were told
to expect a 40-minute mugging.
That game, however, never materialized in a relatively easy win over the Badgers.
Instead, it came Sunday against Middle Tennessee State.
“Sometimes,
a game just gets dirty -- and by that I mean just, really, really
physical,” UF junior forward Will Yeguete said. “When that happens, we
have to get dirty, too.”
It took about a half to figure out how
to take the fight to the Sun Belt Conference power Blue Raiders, but an
early blitz in the second half -- and a flurry of MTSU fouls -- gave the
10th-ranked Gators room to breath and momentum to pull away for a 66-45
win in front of 7,161 at the Tampa Bay Times Forum.
Yeguete,
making his third start at the small forward spot, was in the center of
the scrum, scoring 11 points and grabbing a team-high 13 rebounds, while
senior guard Kenny Boynton scored 18 of his 20 points in the second
half, including his team’s last 13 of the game.
“This was the
most physical team I’ve played against in a long time,” said Boynton,
who Sunday passed Dwayne Schintzius (1,624 points from 1986-90) to
become No. 6 on UF’s all-time scoring list with 1,641 points. “Whether
slapping at the ball or coming after us on rebounds, they were
aggressive on defense.”
Junior point guard Scottie Wilbekin,
suspended for the first three games for violating team rules, made his
season debut off the bench, finishing with eight points, three rebounds
and three assists in 23 minutes for the Gators (3-0).
“It felt
weird being out there at first, but once I got back into the flow of
things in the second half everything seemed a lot more natural,” said
Wilbekin, who actually liked the rougher tone of the game. “It kind of
dragged me into it. I didn’t have an option. I had to be into the game,
focused and intense the whole time.”
That’s how the Blue Raiders
(2-1) came to town -- and it worked for a good half. Middle Tennessee,
which returned 11 players from a team that won 27 games last season and
beat the likes of UCLA, Ole Miss and Tennessee, trailed just 26-23 at
intermission after holding UF to just 39.3 percent from the floor just
four days after the Gators shredded Wisconsin for nearly 62 percent
shooting.
“It was a grind-it game,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said.
The
officials were far more active with the whistles in the second half, as
the Gators were in the one-and-one bonus with just under 14 minutes to
go in the game after inching to a nine-point lead -- its biggest of the
game -- on a driving 3-point play from Boynton.
“I just thought
our flow offensively was disrupted by the game and the amount of contact
and how physical it was,” Donovan said. “And then I thought in the
second half, we really made a huge emphasis of saying, ‘If they’re going
to put that pressure out there [on the perimeter], then we’re left
playing one-on-one in the post,’ and we established that very early.”
The Gators took advantage of their inside advantage, but paid for it along the way.
“When
I say ‘dirty,’ not saying they’re a dirty team; just saying how the
game became so scrappy,” Yeguete said. “They’re a scrappy team. They
play 1-3-1 [zone] most of the game. They fight for loose balls and long
rebounds and 50-50 plays. They did it, so we just had to do it and play
harder than they did.”
The Blue Raiders got their money’s worth,
finishing with eight more fouls than field goals. The Gators may have
run away with it a little sooner had they shot free throws better (58.6
percent), particularly Yeguete and center Patric Young (9 points, 2
rebounds), who combined to go 7-for-17 from the line.
Then came
the second half, with Florida getting some better looks and finding ways
to get to the rim on the way to shooting 58.8 percent after the break
and limiting MTSU to just 26.9 percent.
The score was 56-43 with
under four minutes to go when Boynton hit a pair of free throws to start
his 13-point, and a minute later bombed a 3-pointer from the top of the
key at about 26 feet.
He made another one from about 23 feet about a minute later.
“I kind of felt it late,” he said.
That
was well after the Gators felt the slaps and pokes and grabs of the
Blue Raiders early on, but with plenty of time to spare, as it turned
out.
“I like these kinds of games. Actually, I love these kinds
of games,” Yeguete said. “In the long run, they’ll make us harder and
tougher.”
