Following a stagnant showing offensively from his team in the first half against Richmond, Billy Donovan approached a struggling Scottie Wilbekin in the locker room.
The 18th-year Florida coach had a message at halftime for Wilbekin, who had only two points on 1-of-9 shooting and was not creating good opportunities for his teammates. The Gators led the Spiders by only two points at halftime after recording only four assists against six turnovers.
According to center Patric Young, Donovan challenged his senior floor leader to "start playing like a real point guard."
He got the message.
Wilbekin took five fewer shots in the second half, shooting 3 of 4 for eight points. For the contest, he finished with 10 points on 4-of-13 shooting, two assists and one turnover to help No. 12 Florida finish the game on an 18-8 run and escape Richmond 67-58 in its last non-conference game of the regular season.
"He bounced back great," guard Michael Frazier II said of Wilbekin. "With him being a leader on this team, he has to lead by example. We saw him struggling, and he picked himself up and got us going in the second half."
After missing his first three three-point attempts in catch-and-shoot situations, Wilbekin went 1 of 4 on layup attempts in the first half. He rushed shots and looked upset with Florida’s lack of ball movement.
"Yeah, he was frustrated in the first half," Young said. "It’s not all on him, but … we weren’t playing our offense. The ball was stagnant. We weren’t moving it around, having our motion offense. But it was forcing him — because he was the point guard, he had the ball in his hands — to take a lot of shots that he doesn’t normally take, and to go one-on-one, which isn’t our style at all."
But Wilbekin’s shot selection improved in the second half. His most important shot, a floater down the left baseline over a Richmond defender that cut Florida’s deficit to 48-47 with 5:54 remaining, helped spark UF’s big run.
He also made a key steal and hit two free throws late in the game to help Florida close it out.
Wilbekin’s struggles early Saturday followed a trend in the senior’s recent play. After averaging 5.8 assists in his first four contests this year, he has posted only 2.3 per game in his last four.
His assists average has dropped by one per game since last season, and he has averaged four more field-goal attempts (11.3) than 2012-13. Wilbekin’s field-goal percentage of 38.9 percent has dropped by 6.4 since last year. In his past three games, Wilbekin has gone 11 of 35 from the field.
But what concerned Donovan most after Saturday’s game, the last before Southeastern Conference play begins Wednesday, was his team’s poor ball movement in the first half.
"We don’t see well enough now. We would be great on a horse track because we play like this sometimes," Donovan said, motioning his hands by his eyes to imitate blinders.
"We’ve got these blinders on and they can’t see left or right. They can only see directly in front of them ... They drive the ball and there’s guys standing wide open … and they don’t see them."
Follow Landon Watnick on Twitter @landonwatnick
Scottie Wilbekin faces off against Kansas point guard Frank Mason (0)during the Gators' 67-61 win against the Jayhawks Dec. 10, 2013 in the O'Connell Center.
