Patric Young knows what the Gators are in store for at practice this week.
After No. 13 Florida was out-rebounded by a pair of mid-major teams in its final two non-conference games, Young, a sophomore center, predicted coach Billy Donovan will soon be snapping several 18-inch wide plastic bubbles over the hoops in UF’s basketball complex.
“The ball cannot go into the rim, so you have to rebound the ball,” Young said. “He’s probably going to put that back up tomorrow or whenever. … It’s not fun. It’s not fun knowing no matter what you do; your ball is not going in.”
Early in the season, Donovan often employed the drill to encourage rebounding by all five Gators on the court and not just their thin rotation of frontcourt players.
But on Tuesday night, UAB garnered a 36-34 advantage on the boards in the O’Connell Center to mark the second straight game UF has lost the rebounding battle. Florida was also out-paced by five rebounds on Dec. 31 at home against Yale.
Young scored 15 points against the Blazers and, with sophomore Will Yeguete, accounted for over half of the Gators’ boards, while two starting guards in junior Kenny Boynton and freshman Brad Beal each finished with none.
“This was a night where, again, like Yale, the commitment and the focus is not there,” Donovan said. “There’s a process they have to go through to understand the importance of really what goes into winning and sometimes you want to force that process a lot faster.”
Alongside Erving Walker’s 23-point effort, Boynton also put on a stellar show from the floor with 20 points on 7-for-12 shooting, including six threes, despite his poor rebounding numbers. Beal, however, hit just 2 of 15 shots.
“[Beal] had layups, drives and he took good shots; it wasn’t like he bombed 3-point shots” Donovan said. “But go across and look at the rebound box score. Tonight was a great learning lesson for him about really affecting an impact on the game.”
While the Gators (12-3) nailed a season-high 15 threes against the Blazers (5-8) in their 79-61 win, it was the team’s approach on the glass that had Young concerned heading in to Southeastern Conference play.
The only time Florida had previously finished behind in rebounding this season was in a loss at top-ranked Syracuse on Dec. 2.
“From the beginning of the year, we were really emphasizing on rebounding,” Young said. “We thought we had the problem fixed, and we’re going to be fine because we proved we can rebound against elite teams: Syracuse and Ohio State. I guess we just slipped from that a little bit.”
On the strength of 14 offensive rebounds, the Blazers chipped in 19 second-chance points – eight more than the Gators – and were able to draw within nine points with 5:01 to play after trailing 37-26 at halftime.
Florida was able to avoid any further consequences from its rebounding numbers by exploiting UAB’s porous perimeter defense. Walker hit a pair of threes and Boynton added another in the final five minutes to stretch the Gators to a final 18-point lead.
"I think we finally got what they were doing,” Boynton said. “Coach, he started screaming out what defense they were running and they kept trying to go under screens and we were patient. If they went under the screen, we took the shot or got the ball down to Patric."
Contact John Boothe at jboothe@alligator.org.
Sophomore center Patric Young scored 15 points and hauled in seven rebounds on a night when the Gators were out-rebounded 36-34 by the Blazers.
