Gators Heart breaking 66-65 OT Defeat

Article Chris Harry GatorZone.com Senior Writer

PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas -- Billy Donovan keeps talking about how his young basketball team needs to be scarred and dealt some painful lessons to find out what it takes to be successful.

Well, a few more games like the Florida Gators have had this season -- and losses like Wednesday night’s gut-punch in the Battle 4 Atlantis -- they may need plastic surgery to repair the gashes.

Georgetown guard D’Vauntes Smith-Rivera buried a 21-footer jumper from the top of the key with 3.5 seconds left to hand 18th-ranked UF a knifing 66-65 overtime defeat before a raucous crowd of 3,200 crammed inside the Atlantis Imperial Arena.

Smith-Rivera’s shot came eight seconds after Florida point guard Kasey Hill, mired in a dismal shooting slump to open the season, was fouled throwing in high, arching, off-balance bankshot and made the free throw to give his team the lead with 11.5 seconds to go, making the final sequence all the more frustrating.

“You can focus on the last play, but I wouldn’t have felt great even if Rivera’s shot was off,” Donovan said. “Sometimes, winning is delusional because sometimes it does away with what is actually real. Not that I want to see them go through pain and suffering, but these guys need to be hardened. They need to understand what goes into it and what it really takes, so hopefully a night like tonight will harden them a little bit.”

Those words echoed the coach’s post-game remarks of nine days earlier when Miami guard Angel Rodriguez nailed a 3-point shot in the final seconds to halt UF’s 33-game home winning streak; and a little bit like five days ago when Louisiana-Monroe, out of the Sun Belt Conference, erased an eight-point deficit in the final two minutes at the O’Connell Center, forced overtime and threw a wicked scare at the home team before the the Gators inched away for a win.

Maybe the reality of playing a second straight late-night tip will be a kick in the head; especially one in the loser’s bracket. Florida (2-2) will take on Alabama-Birmingham (2-3), which was waxed by No. 3 Wisconsin 72-43 in the early evening game, Thursday night at 9:30.
Happy Thanksgiving, guys.

“It’s tough,” senior center Jon Horford said after carding a double-double of 10 points and 11 rebounds. “You have to play to the end. We’ve go to get more intense. We can’t let [opponents] get comfortable. And that’s on all of us.”

The late-game letdown spoiled the return of junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith and junior guard Eli Carter, both of whom were sidelined for games due to injuries. Finney-Smith (above right), out since suffering two hairline fractures in his left hand, came off the bench to score a team-high 16 points and grab six rebounds. Carter (below left), who missed the ULM game after spraining his left ankle, had six points on just 2-for-14 shooting, but his ability to penetrate and draw help defenders spaced the floor and led to offensive rebounds and put-backs.
"We were going in not knowing what we would get from them," senior walk-on forward Jake Kurtz said. "But they obviously provided a pretty good lift for our team."

There were 21 lead changes, plus 10 ties, including a big one Florida had an opportunity to break and get out of the converted ballroom about 15 minutes earlier.

It was Carter who had the ball in his hands and a chance to win the game in regulation with the game tied at 34.3 seconds left, meaning the Gators could hold for the final shot. After a few handoffs, Carter rocked and drove into the meat of the collapsing Georgetown defense, where forward L.J. Peak packed the in-traffic shot attempt with two seconds to go, sending the game into the extra period.

Donovan said afterward he would have preferred a kick-out pass in that sequence.

“He’s got to find the open man on that play,” he said.

After Hill’s basket, Hoyas coach John Thompson III took a timeout.

“This felt like a middle-of-the-season or end-of-the-season game,” he said. “Both teams could have packed it in.”

Neither did, but the Hoyas finished it.

With 11.5 on the clock, Peak inbounded under the Hoyas' basket to guard Paul White, who dribbled up the left sideline until he could get a pass to Smith-Rivera in the frontcourt. The 6-foot-3 junior, took two dribbles until his feet were just inside the 3-point line at the top of the key, rose up over UF defender Michael Frazier, who was a tad off balance, and rained his shot.

Swish.
“I was just thinking of getting to the spot I was most comfortable on the floor," said Smith-Rivera, who led all scorers with 17 points on 7-for-14 shooting, despite going 0-for-5 on 3-point attempts. "And that’s where I ended up getting to."

“We came up one play short,” Kurtz said. “That’s something we have to do better.”

That and a lot more, according to the coach, who pointed to 16 turnovers versus just 10 assists and just as well could have mentioned 35.9-percent shooting for the game and 9-for-28 from the 3-point line (32.1 percent). Georgetown (4-0) also shot 49 percent for the game, including 5-for-6 in overtime.

“We don’t play the right way. We don’t,” Donovan said. “We’re not an overly talented team and we don’t have a lot of size. We’re a team that can be hard-working and unselfish team, but we need to move and pass the basketball.”

Evidently, they need to be scarred, too.
This one had to hurt.