With one of the best big men in the Southeastern Conference coming to Gainesville, no one expected Vernon Macklin to play the best game of his career at Florida.
But Macklin outplayed Mississippi State center Jarvis Varnado, scoring a career-high 20 points on 10-of-14 shooting and grabbing six rebounds as UF (17-6, 6-3 SEC) topped MSU (16-7, 4-4 SEC) 69-62 in the O’Connell Center on Saturday.
Macklin went right at the nation’s second-leading shot blocker throughout the game, establishing position down low, hitting his baby hook shot and throwing down a few dunks against Varnado.
“(UF coach Billy Donovan) wanted us to go right at (Varnado’s) chest,” Macklin said. “Don’t be scared to go in there and make tough shots. He’s going to make you alter a lot of shots, but you’ve just got to keep going at him.”
Varnado, who was averaging 5.2 blocks per game before Saturday, scored 16 points but needed 16 shots to do so, and he only recorded one block in 32 minutes of play.
Donovan encouraged Macklin before the game to not be intimidated by Varnado, as going up weakly against such a ferocious shot blocker would play right into his strength.
“The worst thing to do against a shot blocker is to go away from him, because now the guy has no contact and can jump up,” Donovan said. “I thought Vernon, if he could get the ball in there, could do some things against him.”
Instead, Macklin had to “do his work early,” Donovan said, by getting position inside and creating an angle to score — something he has often struggled to do this season.
“That’s actually the game plan with a lot of the bigs, but sometimes I don’t do a great job of doing it,” Macklin said. “Coach keeps telling me all the time to do it every game, so this game I came out and tried my hardest to do it.”
The 6-foot-10 center shot just 3 of 7 in the first half, but Macklin kept Varnado quiet on defense until 2:31 remained before intermission. Varnado scored five points and got his first block of the game during that stretch.
Macklin came out strong after halftime, scoring the Gators’ first 10 points and shooting a perfect 7 for 7 in the second half.
“He did a great job of passing out when they started double-teaming him,” junior power forward Alex Tyus said. “His jump hook’s always there. I feel like we need to do a better job of trying to make more of an effort to get him the ball.
“He played great today. I was waiting for this breakout game for him.”
Macklin’s output was needed given the lackluster offensive performances by Tyus, Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker. UF’s top-three scorers entering the game combined for 21 points on 7-of-35 shooting.
But Macklin and junior forward Chandler Parsons picked up the slack. Parsons filled up the stat sheet with 18 points on 5-of-8 shooting, 12 rebounds, six assists and two steals.
“That shows how good our team is,” Parsons said. “We don’t have to make shots to win. We can play defense, we can go inside, we can go outside. Some guys aren’t going to have perfect games every night — they’re not going to shoot the ball well.”
