After weeks of playing well in only one aspect of the game at a time, the Gators finally put together a complete performance Saturday night.
Florida (15-4, 4-1 Southeastern Conference) had what may have been its best contest of the year as it shot 50 percent and kept Arkansas (12-6, 2-3 SEC) under wraps, notching a 75-43 blowout victory in the O’Connell Center.
“We put it all together,” senior Chandler Parsons said. “We played well on offense, we executed and we played very unselfish. And on the defensive end we also locked up.”
Saturday’s performance served as a microcosm of what many believed this Florida team would be coming in to the season.
UF has played games in which it showed flashes on either offense or defense, but Saturday it proved what it is capable of when it does both for 40 minutes.
“I thought from start to finish it was a real complete game for us,” coach Billy Donovan said.
Coming off a putrid offensive performance against Auburn in which they shot just 28.3 percent in a 45-40 win, the Gators had one of their strongest scoring outputs of the year.
While the offense was entirely different from the way it played at Auburn, the defense looked like the same unit that held the Tigers to their lowest point total in the shot clock era, this time limiting Arkansas to just 29.4 percent shooting.
“Everyone put that game Thursday behind us, and we really just wanted to come out and play defense,” sophomore guard Kenny Boynton said.
Boynton was UF’s best defender, as he played a major role in shutting out junior guard Rotnei Clarke, who came into the game averaging a team-high 13.5 points per contest.
Clarke mustered just three shot attempts for the game, including two air balls from three-point range.
“That was my focus coming into this game: trying to shut him down,” Boynton said. “He’s a great player, great shooter, and I just wanted to do my best to disrupt anything he had going on.”
Although Boynton’s focus was on defense, he also played a major role in an offense that needed less than 19 minutes to make as many field goals (15) as it did in the entirety of Thursday’s game.
UF established an interior presence in the early going to open up the outside, and Boynton responded by hitting a trio of shots from beyond the arc in the first 20 minutes.
Florida opened the Auburn game just 3 for 24 from long distance, but Boynton never shied away from an open three, connecting on four of his seven attempts on the way to a team-high 20 points.
“He’s already done with Thursday,” Parsons said. “That’s over with so he moved on. He’s a scorer, he’s going to shoot the ball no matter if he goes 0 for 9 or 9 for 9.”
Rather than playing a zone scheme like the one Auburn employed to great success, the Razorbacks opted to stay in a man-to-man defense for most of the contest.
This allowed the Gators to make easy post feeds and attack early, as they attempted just five threes in the first half.
Center Vernon Macklin and forward Alex Tyus combined to score the team’s first 12 points. The frontcourt duo finished the game with 13 points apiece.
