Dorian Finney-Smith’s three-pointer should have been good enough.
The shot gave Florida a 61-57 lead with nearly three minutes to play, and all the Gators had to do was close out.
But UF went scoreless down the final 2:53, allowing Ole Miss to come back and win 62-61 on a long-range game-winning dagger from Stefan Moody with less than three seconds to play to hand the Gators their third-straight Southeastern Conference defeat.
"They threw it to him, he took one step and bombed in a shot," coach Billy Donovan said about Moody’s clutch shot. "That was really the difference in the game. Give him credit for knocking down a big shot when his team needed it."
Florida lost in a very similar way to the Rebels on Jan. 24, when the Gators (12-12, 5-6 SEC) saw the Rebels hit two free throws in the final seconds to defeat UF 72-71 in Oxford, Mississippi.
Michael Frazier II, the leading scorer with 27 points in the first battle between the two teams, was ruled out for Thursday night’s rematch with a high ankle sprain suffered in the first half of Florida’s loss to No. 1 Kentucky on Saturday.
Donovan chose to give the starting nod to freshman Devin Robinson, who struggled against the Wildcats, committing three turnovers in just six minutes of play.
However, Robinson capitalized on the opportunity at hand, as the 6-foot-8 Chesterfield, Virginia, native scored a team-high-tying 14 points that included an array of alley-oops that helped push the Gators to a surprising 38-33 halftime lead.
Yet it was the Rebels (17-7, 8-3 SEC) that hit the shot that mattered.
"He just made a good shot," Robinson said about Moody’s game-winner. "We played good defense, he bombed it up and it just happened to go in. It happens. We played good defense, we didn’t break down. He just made a big play."
With the team falling to .500, the Gators appear to be struggling to find a solution that will stop the bleeding before the season ends prematurely.
"We’re pretty close to rock bottom or we’ve already hit it," redshirt junior Alex Murphy said. "I think we’ve played well the last two games, tonight and then against Kentucky. We competed and played together. We played hard, but both of those games didn’t go our way. There’s a fine line between winning and losing at this level. It comes down to execution or one loose ball, or one last possession and defending them on that last play. It hurts."
Follow Graham Hall on Twitter @Graham311
Devin Robinson dunks during Florida's 62-61 loss to Ole Miss on Thursday in the O'Connell Center.
