On Monday, Florida coach Billy Donovan said he wasn’t sure if his team deserved its new No. 13 ranking. Tuesday night’s game backed up his gut feeling.
UF jumped out to a 14-point lead against Florida A&M thanks to eight early points from senior forward Dan Werner, who finished with a team-high 16 points and nine rebounds.
But the Gators (7-0) let the winless Rattlers (0-8) hang around for most of the first half, holding just a four-point advantage at the break, but UF came out strong in the second half and put together a 23-4 run that helped push them past FAMU 80-59.
“Here’s the same team that beat Rutgers and Michigan State four or five days ago, and everybody’s talking about rankings,” Donovan said. “I’m not so sure we could have been ranked in the top 300 with the way we played tonight.”
Although the win kept UF unbeaten on the season, the team still took a step back from the three-game stretch in which it strung together quality wins against Florida State, Michigan State and Rutgers.
“Now, we’re kinda back in coach’s doghouse,” sophomore guard Ray Shipman said. “It’s bad to be in coach’s doghouse, but in a way, it’s kinda like a fire under your tail trying to make you a little bit better.”
Donovan attempted to light a fire under his players with 56 seconds remaining in the first half and his team on the wrong end of a 17-4 scoring run, subbing out point guard Erving Walker for seldom-used walk-on Kyle McClanahan.
“When he put Kyle in, Kyle was doing all the things coach was telling us to do that we weren’t doing, and that kinda gave us a lift,” Shipman said. “At halftime, coach said, ‘Kyle came in and saw what needed to be done and did it.
“‘Some of you guys see what needs to be done, come out there, and do it.’ That’s what kinda helped us.”
Donovan kept on his players at halftime, warning them against the kind of slide the Gators have made the past two seasons once they jumped into the top 25 and became too confident in themselves.
“He said everything we worked for, we let go,” Werner said. “All the improvements we’d made, we took steps back.”
The Gators responded to Donovan’s challenge in the opening minutes of the second half, avoiding a potential letdown game by using the full-court press that proved so effective last week and holding the Rattlers scoreless for nearly four minutes.
UF held FAMU to 26 points after intermission, and Alex Tyus and Vernon Macklin combined for 18 points on 6-of-6 shooting from the field and the free-throw line in the second half.
“I’m gonna tell you I never want us to let down, but obviously if you let down, you’ve got to respond somehow, and I think we did it the right way,” Werner said.
SHIPMAN GETS THE START: Freshman guard Kenny Boynton was out of the starting five for the first time all season.
Donovan said Boynton has been battling the flu, and he wasn’t even sure last night if the team’s leading scorer would play at all.
Shipman took Boynton’s spot to start the game, and junior forward Chandler Parsons came out with Walker, Werner, Tyus and Macklin at the beginning of the second half.
Boynton, who was averaging 15.8 points per game entering Tuesday night, dished out nine assists but finished with just one point on 0-of-7 shooting in 24 minutes of play. He had been averaging almost 33 minutes per game.
“It was my decision,” Donovan said. “That’s why he didn’t play a lot of minutes tonight.
“Hopefully he’ll get back, but I didn’t even know if he was going to play in the second half.”
