No. 1 Florida pulls away from pesky Albany
Florida teacher Billy Donovan gathered his group in a solemn storage locker area and supplied the severe fact: "This isn't visiting be enough to keep our season going.".
The gamers trembled their heads in agreement-- and swore to respond.
The top-seeded Gators sleepwalked early and still looked prone late. Luckily for Florida, Donovan's bench turned up big and released the group in a tight game against exactly what was supposed to be an overmatched opponent.
Sixth guy Dorian Finney-Smith scored 16 points, the majority of them on dunks, and Florida utilized a second-half rise to beat No. 16 seed Albany 67-55 in the NCAA tournament Thursday.
"We understand that there's even more inside people, more that we need to offer," shared center Patric Youthful, who doned with 10 factors and 10 rebounds for his initial double-double of the period. "Ideally we can can be found in the next game, Saturday, with a much better state of mind, much better concentration.".
Kasey Hillside included 10 factors off the bench for Florida (33-2), which extended its school-record gaining streak to 27 video games and advanced to deal with ninth-seeded Pittsburgh in the South Region on Saturday.
However the Gators know they'll have to play better to progress to the Dessert 16.
"It was good enough to succeed, yet is it good enough to bet a team like Pittsburgh? Probably not," Donovan stated. "However I boast of our people since they found a way to succeed when they really did not play their ideal. And you understand just what? They have actually constantly been truly good at having the opportunity to discover important lessons in a bunch of methods. So with any luck they'll manage to return and fix that and do a little bit better.".
Florida's gain made No. 1 seeds 117-0 versus 16-seeds because the NCAA competition expanded to 64 groups in 1985.
So many of those ended by halftime. This one, though, was far from an unequal affair.
The initial fifty percent could not have gone considerably a lot better for Albany, which was back on the court less than 48 hours after the program's very first NCAA competition win. The Great Danes (19-15), who beat Mount St. Mary's in the First 4 in Dayton, Ohio, made 10 of their first 15 gos and hung with Florida.
Albany did an outstanding job cracking Florida's press. And instructor Will Brown had a clear tactical plan on defense: Try not to allow Michael Frazier II get any kind of tidy appearances from 3-point assortment, plead Casey Prather to take jumpers, droop in the blog post on facility Young and mix up defenses from property to belongings. Box and one. Triangle and two. Area. Guy. Albany utilized it all.
It worked-- almost to perfection.
"I understood they were going to junk the video game up," Donovan shared.
Frazier was scoreless in the initial one-half, Prather turned into a jump shooter and Youthful was missing out on early on.
Yet Donovan adjusted, like he has doinged this numerous various other times this season, and obtained Florida rolling. Scottie Wilbekin started driving and dishing, producing easy containers for Youthful and Finney-Smith at the rim. Finney-Smith had 6 successive points that seemed to obtain the Southeastern Conference champs going, and Prather adhered to with a three-point play that irritated up the pro-Florida crowd.
Florida's last 10 baskets of the initial half were in the paint.
Still, Donovan was livid at halftime and ripped his gamers for an absence of protection.
"We were not as attached as a group defensively as we have actually depended on this point in time, and we've been an excellent protective group," Donovan said. "Today we were not a wonderful defensive group.".
Florida lastly reacted with a 9-0 run early in the 2nd one-half-- pioneered by defense, of course-- that became the difference. Young started it with a three-point play. Hillside followed with a driving layup and afterwards included 2 free throws after a turnover. Will Yeguete obtained one more steal, and Finney-Smith's emphatic dunk capped the eruption.
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It was precisely what Florida needed, and it probably kept Albany from pulling off the most elusive upset in college hoops.
"Quite couple of folks provided us a possibility," said Brown, whose 11-year-old kid even asked whether the group was going to get eliminated. "If we didn't come here to succeed, we need to have got on that aircraft in Dayton and went right back to Albany. A 16 is going to defeat a 1 eventually, and we wished to be that group.".
DJ Evans led Albany with 21 points and 7 rebounds. He established the tone for the Great Danes early yet couldn't do enough to keep them close late.
Finney-Smith was 6-of-10 capturing and tough to take care of in the article. Hillside, that had not been sure he would be able to play due to turf toe, was powerful on the open flooring.
Prather (16 points) and Wilbekin (10) also reached double figures for Florida, which left Donovan and brace supervisors everywhere shaking their heads. Will the Gators respond?
"I seem like we can," Finney-Smith mentioned. "We've been doing it all year. It was merely a hard game. We really did not bring out a bunch of electricity like we readied to, but we have actually merely got to go on to the following video game.".
