Forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. found the ball in his hands with less than five seconds left in the first half.
He was just behind the three-point line, and having already hit from long range earlier in the game, he let it fly with just a second left as the buzzer sounded across the O’Connell Center.
Swish.
“He pressed up a bit, and I got a little separation,” Blackshear Jr. said after the game. “It was a pretty good shot.”
The half-closing three was one of the highlights in graduate transfer Blackshear Jr.’s debut with Florida as the team soundly defeated the Lynn University Fighting Knights 89-71 in an exhibition Tuesday night.
The forward ended his first competition as a Gator with 16 points and 10 rebounds.
The first half remained close for a short stretch, with UF holding a 10-7 lead four minutes in, but Florida opened it up shortly after.
Blackshear Jr. was the team’s best performer in the first half long before he hit the three to close it out. He netted 12 points and went three for four from the field, hitting two of his three 3-point attempts and grabbing four rebounds.
Another notable first-half performance came from sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson, who racked up nine points, two rebounds and two assists.
And Florida didn’t stop rolling once it started, and quickly outpaced the Knights to end the half with a substantial 49-29 lead.
It may have just been an exhibition, but the Gators had no intent of slowing down.
The second half started with an 11-0 run that included two buckets from the three-point line by sophomore guard Andrew Nembhard.
Nembhard had a dominant second half, scoring 13 points and going three for four from beyond the arc. He added on to it with two rebounds and two assists and ended the night as Florida’s leading scorer, finishing the game with 17 points, six assists and four rebounds.
“I’ve been shooting it well lately from practice,” Nembhard said. “(I’ve been) staying focused on getting it to go down as much as possible.”
The Gators’ main task defensively in the second half was the containment of Lynn guard Jordan Allen, and despite UF’s victory, they were largely unable to do so. Allen accounted for more than half of the Fighting Knights’ points, ending the night with 37 of Lynn’s 71 points and shooting 13 for 23 from the field.
“Jordan Allen was fantastic, my goodness,” coach Mike White said after the game. “We allowed him to get going, and then he hit some tough, guarded shots.”
The Gators defense, though lacking a bit in the second half, managed 16 points off turnovers and never trailed during the game.
Florida will face off against North Florida for its first regular season game on Nov. 5, and the team will certainly attempt to improve its defensive play before then.
“You’ve got to contest the shot, you’ve got to block out and you’ve got to contest the basketball,” White said. “We didn’t do that at a very high level.”
Follow River Wells on Twitter @riverhwells. Contact him at rwells@alligator.org
Point guard Andrew Nembhard led the Gators with 17 points and notched six assists in the exhibition win.
