Florida basketball coach Billy Donovan’s 33-game home winning streak was snapped by in-state rival Miami on Monday night.
The Hurricanes (2-0) defeated the Gators (1-1) 69-67 in No. 8 Florida’s second official game of the season.
“I guess streaks are meant to be broken. I didn’t really look at it that way” Donovan said. “Our basketball team needs to get better.”
The game was won and lost in the final four minutes of the second half. Miami tied things up at 55 with a free throw shot from Miami junior center Tonye Jekiri off a foul from senior forward Jacob Kurtz.
Jekiri’s second free throw was good and gave the Canes the lead for the first time that night. Two more free throws from Jekiri off a foul on transfer center Jon Horford solidified Miami’s three-point lead.
But Florida was quick to respond with a three-point shot from Horford. And the back and forth ensued.
Florida took the lead last at the 1:01 mark.
Donovan believes the game was won and lost in Florida’s fouls. The Gators ended the game with 18 fouls while Miami had 12. Junior guard Eli Carter fouled out of the game with three seconds left to play.
“I thought Rodriguez and the fouling were the difference in the game,” Donovan said.
Miami’s redshirt junior guard Angel Rodriguez scored 24 of Miami’s 69 points on Monday. Going into halftime Rodriguez had only managed 2 points and was 1-for-5 on field goals.
Carter ended Monday leading the Gators with 21 total points. In the entire night he missed just one field goal.
“We played pretty good in the first half,” Carter said. “We’ve got to put 40 minutes together.”
A missed jumper from junior guard Michael Frazier at the buzzer to end the game left Florida two points shy of the win. With only two seconds left to play, Frazier was working with tough circumstances and Donovan said he respects his efforts.
If Carter hadn’t fouled out a second earlier, the final shot could have been his to make.
“The ball got thrown the length of the floor. Devin Robinson made a nice catch and threw it to Frazier,” Donovan said. “I wonder if Frazier could have taken a dribble because their center kind of stood up, I just almost thought he could have taken a dribble and maybe gone to the rim but in the heat of the moment 2.3 seconds…I’d rather have him shoot at the basket.”
Horford believes this is representative of a larger trend of Florida letting go in the second half.
“It’s been a recurring theme,” Horford said. “We haven’t been as strong in the second half for whatever reason, I’m not sure what that is but I’m very sure that we’re going to go into practice these next few days and we’re going to correct it.”
Donovan echoed Horford in saying he was unsure how his team was able to perform defensively in the first half but not in the second. Miami outscored Florida 48-34 in the second half while Florida outscored Miami 33-21 in the first.
“Is it fatigue, is it lack of discipline, I don’t know,” Donovan said. “But we certainly showed the capability of doing it in the first half because we had great energy in the first half.”
Donovan made the first adjustment of the season to his starting lineup on Monday. Donovan replaced injured junior forward Dorian Finney-Smith with senior walk-on Jacob Kurtz. Monday marked Kurtz’s first career-start. Kurtz totaled 36 minutes played, six points, eight rebounds and four fouls.
Donovan said he doesn’t expect Finney-Smith to be playing on Friday against Louisiana-Monroe because he is concerned about prolonging the recovery process if Finney-Smith does play. Donovan said Finney-Smith, who dressed and warmed-up for Monday’s game, understands that he’s not ready to play due to pain.
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Eli Carter goes for a layup during Florida's loss to Miami on Monday in the O'Connell Center.
