Guard Noah Locke was having a rough game against Missouri. He had missed all five of his shots, but even as attempt after attempt came up short, forward Keyontae Johnson encouraged him to keep up his confidence.
“Keep shooting, keep shooting,” he urged Locke.
He reminded Locke what he has proven he can do given the opportunity to shoot — for instance, when he dropped 22 points against Ole Miss on Jan. 30.
Locke took his teammate’s advice.
With 7:11 left in the game, Locke pulled up from three and sunk it, giving Florida its first lead since early in the first half.
Those three points were all Locke scored, but they capped off a 12-point comeback as the Gators earned an important 64-60 home win against the Tigers.
It was timely contributions like Locke’s, as well as 23 Mizzou team fouls, that gave Florida (16-11, 8-6 SEC) 30 tries from behind the charity stripe (of which it made 25), that helped UF pull a victory out of an overall sloppy game.
“It’s been a struggle for us to generate physicality on offense and find ways to get to the line,” coach Mike White said. “To win a little bit differently I think is a step.”
The Gators didn’t just win differently against the Tigers, however.
Florida’s four-game winning streak is its longest of the season, and in all four of those wins, it had to get creative. The Gators demonstrated that their formula for winning is now broader.
Early in the season, whether the team won or lost generally came down to shooting. When the outside shots fell, Florida looked like a competitive team. When it didn’t, the team couldn’t muster enough interior offense to compete with quality opponents.
Take the two games against Butler, another bubble team in a more tenuous position than UF. When the teams faced off in the Bahamas on Nov. 23, Florida shot 34.6 percent in a seven-point loss. But when they played in Gainesville on Dec. 29, the Gators shot 53.6 percent.
They won that game by 34.
Now, Florida has shown that it can win with more offensive variety. The Gators can score inside, partially thanks to forward Isaiah Stokes.
He scored six points, four of which came in the paint. He played a season-high 18 minutes, and presents a tantalizing, more offensively-oriented alternative to big men Kevarrius Hayes and Dontay Bassett.
He said he needs to improve upon his defense to become a well-rounded five.
“I’ve got to do a better job of defending ball screens,” Stokes said. “Just do everything on the defensive end and everything will play out.”
Florida’s bench relief isn’t just coming in the frontcourt, however.
Guard Jalen Hudson is averaging 11.2 points a game over the last five contests, as opposed to his season average of 7.2. The fifth-year senior said his late-season surge is partly due to the realization his college career is coming to a close.
“It’s just coming to an end, and I just want to give it everything I got,” Hudson said. “I don’t want to have any regrets.”
White echoed Hudson’s sentiment, and said that more consistent play from the other seniors, guard KeVaughn Allen and Hayes, can be attributed to that realization.
“It’s the bottom of the ninth for these guys,” White said. “Snap of the finger, it’s gone.”
Time may be running out for UF’s upperclassmen, but now they have a newfound reason for optimism.
Florida’s scoring defense ranks 20th in the nation. The offense, while still shaky, is quickly improving. Even when it isn’t pretty, the Gators are winning games they would have lost earlier in the season.
To Stokes, that means everything as Florida wraps up the regular season and turns its attention toward a potential postseason berth.
“I feel like everything’s starting to click now,” he said. “We’re playing more together, we’re playing as a unit. Keep doing that, and it’ll work out in our favor.”
Follow Tyler Nettuno on Twitter @TylerNettuno and contact him at tnettuno@alligator.org.
Florida forward Keyontae Johnson scored 13 points on 4-of-8 shooting in UF's 64-60 win over Missouri on Saturday at the O'Connell Center.
