Before the first half ended in Bud Walton Arena, it was clear Florida was not going to play like any of Arkansas’ previous guests.
Sporting a perfect 17-0 record at home prior to Saturday night, the Razorbacks had made a habit of hassling their visitors with an unrelenting pressure defense that led the Southeastern Conference in steals, turnovers forced and turnover margin.
Normally, Arkansas would be pushing double-digit takeaways at halftime. Instead, Florida was more than midway to breaking the century mark.
The truth is, the Gators’ scouting report on the Razorbacks’ press began weeks ago.
After beating Vanderbilt on Feb. 4, freshman guard Brad Beal said Florida’s 17-forced turnover performance in that game was inspired by Arkansas’ own use of a trap defense in an eight-point home win against the Commodores on Jan. 31.
That preparation continued into last week, as UF coach Billy Donovan made breaking the Razorback’s pressure a top priority.
“We worked on that in practice; we did a V-cut (passing) drill every day,” junior guard Kenny Boynton said. “[Saturday] in shootaround that was the main focus: Take care of the ball.”
The 11 turnovers Florida committed in its 30-point win Saturday were tied for the fewest Arkansas has forced in 12 SEC contests. Only once this season has a team limited itself to single-digit giveaways against the Razorbacks, who came in averaging a league-high 17.1 forced turnovers per game.
“I thought the key in the game was how we handled their pressure,” Donovan said. “We were alert. The thing about it is you got to be a step ahead. So when you’re in your offense and all of a sudden the ball starts moving and they run a trap, you got to be in position to make the next pass.”
While the Gators’ scoring effort was fueled by the re-emergence of senior point guard Erving Walker, who scored a career-high 31 points, Florida was also reinvigorated defensively from the return of a key player.
Sophomore forward Will Yeguete, who regularly plays at the front of UF’s press, played his first minutes since suffering his second concussion of the season Feb. 11 against Tennessee. Though Florida only forced seven Arkansas turnovers, Yeguete helped the Gators hold an SEC opponent below 40 percent shooting both from the field and beyond the arc for the first time in 10 games.
“With Patric and Murphy in foul trouble, I thought we got a great rebounding effort from Brad Beal and Will Yeguete,” Donovan said. “They had 20 rebounds between them.”
Donovan lauded the decision-making of his guards as the game progressed. Walker, who had five assists, went without a turnover for the fourth time this season.
Arkansas was only able to convert four of Florida’s turnovers into points and never trailed by less than 22 in the second half.
“We had a couple of things there, Erv get a technical foul, we lost our composure a couple times but they were playing hard,” Donovan said.
“The way they were playing us defensively, we had to make good decisions because they turn people over.”
Contact John Boothe at jboothe@alligator.org.
