Billy Donovan could see a problem brewing even before his team left for Rutgers.
Though the Gators were prepping for a hyped and emotional New Jersey homecoming for junior guard Mike Rosario, a Scarlet Knights transfer, Donovan could only characterize Florida’s approach leading up to the game as lethargic.
“I really saw it coming back out of the break,” Donovan said. “We’ve had two OK days at practice, kind of uninspired a little bit.”
When No. 10 Florida finally arrived at the Rutgers Athletic Center to a raucous crowd of 7,855 that tried its best to rattle Rosario, it was the Scarlet Knights’ pressure on the court that unraveled the Gators.
Rutgers (8-5) forced 18 turnovers and limited Florida, the nation’s leader in made 3-pointers, to just 33.3 percent behind the arc in an 85-83 double-overtime thriller on Thursday night that dropped the Gators (10-3) to 0-3 in true road games this season.
“It’s a humbling experience for our guys,” Donovan said. “I thought we really took some ill-advised shots, made some ill-advised decisions and we really talked a lot about the decisions in this game.”
Donovan lauded his team’s ball movement early on as the Gators jumped out to a 14-5 lead in the first six minutes behind eight straight points from sophomore forward Erik Murphy, who finished with 14.
Florida also received a season-high tying 26 points from junior guard Kenny Boynton on 8-of-14 shooting, but failed to establish the 6-foot-10 Murphy or sophomore center Patric Young, 11 points, in the post for much of the game.
“Then it all stopped, and we wanted it to almost look like we wanted it to be easy,” Donovan said. “They don’t let you play like that and we did not have good enough resiliency.”
Senior guard Erving Walker, who scored nine points, was the lone Gators starter to finish with more assists, six, than turnovers, four.
Freshman Brad Beal had 15 points but also posted a career-worst seven giveaways to just one assist, while Rosario added five points in14 minutes punctuated by boos and jeers from the stands.
The Scarlet Knights were able to force overtime, despite being down seven points with two minutes remaining in regulation due to two costly turnovers by the Gators’ most experienced guards, Boynton and Walker. Another turnover by Beal with four seconds left in the first overtime prevented a try at a potential game-winner for Florida.
“The difference in the game, though Kenny Boynton had a great, great offensive game, was their backcourt totally outplayed our backcourt,” Donovan said. “You’ve got some experience back there for us to have three turnovers like that at the end of the game.”
Against a battle-tested Florida guard rotation, Rutgers received 58 points from three freshman guards, including 31 from rookie Eli Carter.
Still, Florida had the chance to send the game into a third overtime period but the 5-foot-8 Walker missed a jumper just inside the arc as time expired.
“We just didn’t do the things that we needed to do in this game to put ourselves in the position to win,” Donovan said. “Rutgers is not a great basketball team, but we did not give ourselves the opportunity when it was crunch time.”
Contact John Boothe at jboothe@alligator.org.
A radio broadcast contributed to this report.
