Kenny Boynton has not always been comfortable with clearing his mind and closing tight games for the Gators.
Despite his reputation as a high-volume shooter during his first two seasons at Florida, Boynton found that forgetting one of his missed shots could be more complicated than simply taking another.
"In the past years, my confidence was messed up a lot," Boynton said. "I was reading a lot (of what other people wrote about me) and I wasn't used to not making shots."
So when Boynton, a junior guard, saw his personal-best scoring pace begin to slow down three weeks into UF's Southeastern Conference slate, he tried not to panic like he did earlier in his career.
Against LSU on Jan. 21, his 34-game 3-point streak ended, as did his overall national lead in made threes. Two games later, when UF hosted Mississippi State, Boynton, again, went 0-for-3 from deep and scored a season-low two points.
Through 15 non-conference games, he averaged 19.5 points per game, but in his first six SEC games, Boynton's scoring dipped to 11.7 points each outing.
"At some point in the season, everybody goes through about two or three games where their shot goes off," Boynton said. "That was just my two- or three-game stretch. I don't think there was ever a chance where I was worried about my shot."
In Florida's pair of wins against South Carolina and Vanderbilt, Boynton rebounded from his sub-par offensive performances by scoring 42 combined points and matching his season average in back-to-back conference games for the first time this season.
Perhaps even more important was the way Boynton, and the rest of his team, finished each Gators' victory.
Boynton scored a combined 12 points on seven free throws, a layup and a 3-pointer in the final 1:09 against the Gamecocks and 1:01 against the Commodores.
"Throughout the whole season we've shown that we could bounce back when a team throws a punch at us," Boynton said. "We closed the (Vandy) game out well. … I think we've been struggling earlier in the year with free throws but when it's time to make free throws I think overall as a team we make them."
Boynton went 13 of 15 from the free-throw line, including 5 for 5 against Vanderbilt, over the two games.
In his six previous SEC games, he had made only 9 of 15 from the charity stripe.
Senior guard Erving Walker, who assisted on Boynton's three in the final minute against Vandy, was also perfect from the line on four free throws.
"So far in SEC, I think we're a lot better," Walker said. "Guys are just stepping to the line with confidence."
Altogether against the Commodores, the Gators went 16 of 17 from the line after entering the game ranked 10th in the conference in free-throw shooting percentage.
"Even earlier in the year, we were shooting like 53 or 54 percent from the free-throw line," coach Billy Donovan said. "It's all focus and I do think some of this stuff with these guys is when they're playing and they get fouled, they're living in stuff that's either happened in the past and their mind wanders."
Contact John Boothe at jboothe@alligator.org.
Florida junior guard Kenny Boynton scored a team-high 18 points in Saturday's 73-65 win against Vanderbilt at the O'Connell Center.
