The only thing that went wrong was the sequence after the opening tip.
At half court, Chris Chiozza caught the ball from a leaping John Egbunu and passed it along the sideline to a streaking KeVaughn Allen, whose back was turned.
Turnover.
After that, everything the Gators tried seemed to work.
“Some nights you come out, and you can’t miss,” forward Dorian Finney-Smith said.
Florida (13-6, 5-2 Southeastern Conference) began its 95-63 win over Auburn in the O’Connell Center on Saturday night with a 25-8 run, sparked by a screaming, fist-pumping Finney-Smith after the forward made his second three-pointer of the game.
Two possessions later, the redshirt senior jumped over an Auburn defender for a put-back dunk, collecting two more of his season-high 24 points, to go along with eight rebounds and three assists.
“Dorian’s playing like an all-league player,” UF coach Mike White said. “It probably starts with him.”
The Gators out-shot, out-passed and out-rebounded the Tigers (9-9, 3-4 SEC), holding AU to 35.8-percent shooting from the field, nine assists and 13 fewer rebounds.
“They physically dominated us inside,” Auburn coach Bruce Pearl said. “They had their way with us.”
Meanwhile, the Gators shot a season-high 56.9 percent from the field, and made 9-of-19 shots from behind the arc.
“At least there’s more of an identity of where we’re trying to go with the basketball,” White said. “If shots keep falling like that, yeah, I like this identity.”
Redshirt sophomore John Egbunu added 12 points, nine rebounds and three blocks, including several and-one opportunities, where the 6-foot-11 center — a 54.5 percent free-throw shooter — went 4-of-6 from the foul line.
Kasey Hill had 14 points, four assists and wore a wide grin after making a three-pointer in the first half, just his sixth of the season.
Even reserve forward KeVarrius Hayes, who had converted on just 30.8 percent of his free-throw attempts this season and who was 0-of-8 from the charity stripe in SEC play, made two consecutive free throws in the first half.
“We made shots, we got stops. We shot the ball with confidence tonight,” Finney-Smith said. “We’re shooting the ball a lot better right now, hopefully we can keep it going.”
Saturday marked UF’s third straight win, tying its longest win streak of the season. Florida will try to increase its streak to four when it travels to Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday to face Vanderbilt at 9 p.m.
“It seems like every time we play two, three good games in a row, we take a step backward,” White said. “As we head into this week, we better be on it.”
Contact Ian Cohen @icohen@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @icohenb.
UF’s Dorian Finney-Smith drives into the paint during Florida’s 95-63 win against Auburn on Jan. 23, 2016, in the O’Connell Center.
