Dorian Finney-Smith had been struggling all night against FSU, but an opportunity for redemption presented itself in the final seconds of the contest.
With the score tied at 66 and 27 seconds left in the game, Scottie Wilbekin wasted out the clock and then pulled up for a jumper. After the miss, two Florida State players boxed out Casey Prather. Patric Young got a hand on the ball but could not come down with it.
Fortunately for Florida, Finney-Smith was there.
The redshirt sophomore forward crashed the boards and pulled down the rebound. He then drew a foul on FSU guard Ian Miller during a layup attempt with 1.3 seconds left.
In the double bonus, Finney-Smith’s first free throw clanked off the right side of the rim.
After the miss, Finney-Smith’s teammates gave him reassurance.
“My teammates had a lot of confidence that I was going to knock it down,” he said. “They were telling me, ‘Take my time.’ Patric said, ‘Be great,’ so I just did it like every day in practice, went up there and shot with confidence.”
His second attempt was money.
Finney-Smith’s final bucket at the charity stripe proved to be the difference for the No. 15 Gators (6-1), as they pulled out a 67-66 win against the Seminoles on Friday night in front of 12,306 fans in the O’Connell Center and kept their 20-game home winning streak alive.
Although Finney-Smith finished with only six points on 2-of-12 shooting in 31 minutes, the Virginia Tech transfer pulled down a team-best 10 rebounds – including that final offensive board.
“Coach D just kept telling me, ‘Move on to the next play. Move on to the next play,’” Finney-Smith said. “I tried to do that, and I ended up coming up with the game-winning free throw. By them just telling me … ‘Just stay in the moment,’ it made me not think about all the misses.”
Finney-Smith’s night was off to a rough start. He was 0 of 4 from behind the arc for the game.
After Finney-Smith missed a dunk with 15:23 remaining in the second half, Donovan pulled the forward out of the game.
“I pulled him aside and just his whole body language was bad. Not towards anybody, just himself,” Donovan said. “I’m just like, ‘Move on, right now. You’re draining energy from me.’ I’m having a hard time trying to get excited coaching watching you walk off the floor right now.
“But to his credit, I think he tried to move past it.”
Finney-Smith did just that. His one play in the waning seconds of the game is what most people will remember from Friday night.
“He’s a tremendous athlete,” FSU coach Leonard Hamilton said of Finney-Smith.
“A lot of pushing and shoving going on in the last play, and he’s a great athlete that’s capable of going above you and pulling the rebound like that. So, you’ve got to give him credit. He was a great player as a freshman at Virginia Tech. At least now I only have to play him one time a year.
“That big play that he made was probably the deciding factor in the game.”
Follow Landon Watnick on Twitter @LandonWatnick.
Redshirt sophomore forward Dorian Finney-Smith shoots a jumper during No. 15 Florida's 67-66 win against Florida State on Friday night in the O'Connell Center.
