ATHENS, Ga. — After Florida lost Will Yeguete to a season-ending injury, Billy Donovan said he had a new vision of how his team would play in its last three regular season games heading into March.
The Gators had to go forward using a smaller bench without the defensive-minded Yeguete, but Donovan was enticed at the thought of having as many as five 3-point shooters on the floor at one time.
Saturday afternoon at Georgia’s Stegeman Coliseum, a series of mental mistakes and defensive lapses against the worst shooting team in the conference doomed No. 12 Florida before Donovan’s scheme could ever reach fruition.
The Bulldogs (13-15, 4-10 Southeastern Conference) shot a season-high 52.9 percent from the field and made seven 3-pointers in a 76-62 win against the Gators (22-7, 10-4 SEC). The 14-point margin is the second largest loss Florida has suffered all season, trailing only a 78-58 defeat Feb. 7 to No. 1 Kentucky
“We definitely did have a lot of defensive breakdowns,” Donovan said. “We got hung up on screens and did not do a great job defensively at all. A team that shoots 38 percent in the league shoots 52 percent and with as poorly as we shot it that was obviously a huge difference.”
Despite freshman Brad Beal reaching his fifth double-double performance of the season on 19 points and 12 rebounds, the Gators’ offense fell flat for large portions of the game. Florida went just 36.7 percent from the floor and struggled behind the 3-point line on 5-of-23 shooting.
Beal made 9 of 10 from the charity strip but was also among two other Gators, Erik Murphy and Mike Rosario, who finished a combined 0 for 12 from deep.
After the missed shots, Florida did a poor job getting back in transition, leading to 14-0 advantage for Georgia on fastbreak points.
“They played a lot harder than we did, especially on our defensive end,” Beal said. “It was great at all, giving away too many threes. They shot a high percentage at halftime. Coming into the second half they got even hotter, started going on runs and our defense was just terrible.”
The Gators trailed by nine at break but the Bulldogs were able to swell their lead to 16 with 10 minutes left to play on a 22-15 run to start the second half. Georgia hit four threes during that stretch, including one from 18-point scorer Kentavious Caldwell-Pope.
With three minutes remaining, Florida mounted a 9-2 charge fueled by six points from Erving Walker and a 3-pointer by Kenny Boynton that cut the lead to five. The Gators forced two turnovers in the run, but Donovan felt his team’s effort was too little too late.
“There was an intensity level with four minutes to go when we threw in a couple Hail Mary shots to cut it to six or eight or five or whatever it was,” Donovan said. “But we didn’t deserve to win the game.”
Florida struggled with mental breakdowns even before the game started when sophomore Casey Prather had a technical foul called against him for dunking during warm-ups.
The worst mistake in Donovan's eyes came with 1:17 left as the Gators tried to inch closer to a one-possession game for the first time since the opening half.
With the shot clock down to single digits on Georgia, Beal ran after a loose ball near mid-court and collided with UGA’s Dustin Ware. When the foul was called on Beal there was just one second left on the shot clock, bailing the Bulldogs out of a tough scoring situation.
“We run over a guy with one second left on the shot clock with the ball going to half court,” Donovan said. “Just mentally I didn’t think that we were in the game at all from start to finish.”
Ware would go on to hit both free throws, pushing Georgia’s lead to seven and ultimately sealing the victory.
“I kind of hate that call because it’s a loose ball but I mean I’m a lot bigger than him so of course he’s going to retaliate harder than I would,” Beal said. “He fell and I knew as soon as I made contact with him it was a dumb foul. But at the same time, I was just trying to make a hustle play.”
Contact John Boothe at jboothe@alligator.org.
Georgia guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope (1) shoots past Florida guard Bradley Beal (23) during the second half of Georgia's 76-62 win on Saturday.
