On a night when they couldn’t get their outside shots to fall, the Gators relied on a dominant interior performance to carry them to victory.
Seniors Vernon Macklin and Alex Tyus combined for 39 points and 13 rebounds as Florida (7-2) recorded a 65-52 win over Kent State (7-3) on Thursday in the O’Connell Center.
“Alex had some very explosive plays in the second half with a couple dunks and Vernon finished around the basket,” coach Billy Donovan said. “Those guys got a large number of shots, which is great.”
As a team, UF outscored Kent State 46-16 in the paint and outrebounded the Golden Flashes 40-32.
Thirty-one of those points in the paint came from Macklin and Tyus, who also grabbed eight of UF’s 14 offensive rebounds.
Those boards turned into some of UF’s 17 second-chance points.
“Our guys make the effort to offensive rebound, and that’s something that I think we’ve gotten better at,” Donovan said. “We’ve become a better rebounding team than we were the last couple of years.”
While rebounding was a major factor in setting up interior scores, stellar ball movement was also a key to Florida’s success.
Although they finished the game with as many assists as turnovers, the Gators were able to find the open man and get good looks at the basket.
“We did a good job of getting (Tyus and Macklin) the ball in areas where they could really do something with it,” Donovan said. “A couple weeks ago we were very stagnant and the ball wasn’t moving. I think they’re doing a better job of moving the ball, passing the ball, screening and we’re getting some good player movement.”
Florida’s interior dominance was also apparent on the defensive end, as they held Kent State to just 16 points in the paint on 8-of-25 shooting.
The Gators also managed to block seven shots and force 15 turnovers, effectively keeping the Golden Flashes off balance and out of sync the entire night.
Kent State’s frontcourt players combined for just 18 points in the game — a number well below their season average of 37.
“We got some turnovers and just tried to make it hard for them the whole game,” Tyus said.
Four of UF’s block’s came over a span of just 1:37, igniting a 25-4 run that gave the Gators a lead they would never relinquish.
Florida held Kent State scoreless over the final 4:12 of the first half, allowing it to finish on a 9-0 run and take a 32-27 lead into the break.
Florida kept that momentum going after halftime, extending its lead to 48-31 with 13:16 to go.
“Sometimes you’re going to have stretches where things just come together,” Tyus said. “We just need to make those stretches as long as possible. Usually we don’t get off to a good start in the second half, so in the first four minutes we just wanted to win those minutes.”
The lone dark spot for the Gators was a 3-for-16 shooting performance from beyond the arc, highlighted by a 1-for-8 showing from sophomore Kenny Boynton.
But Florida made up for those shortcomings with anther strong defensive performance, as they held Kent State to 35 percent shooting.
“Everybody wants to talk about how our shooting has certainly been up and down and we’ve not shot the ball great,” Donovan said. “But I think the thing that has probably gotten lost the last three or four games was how much these guys have improved defensively.”
