For the second time in coach Amanda Butler’s tenure, the nation’s top-ranked team has ended the Gators’ season.
Florida lost to eventual national champion Connecticut in the 2009 NCAA Tournament. On Tuesday, UF fell to overall No. 1 seed Baylor 76-57 in Bowling Green, Ohio.
UF’s last seven appearances in The Big Dance have ended with defeats in the first two rounds.
“You’ve got to fight, and execute and play disciplined defense at the same time — those things didn’t all happen,” assistant coach Brenda Mock Kirkpatrick said. “Fight happened. Execution and disciplined defense did not.”
The Gators (20-13) remained competitive with the Bears (36-0) in the first half by putting together a late scoring surge and holding Naismith Trophy finalist Brittney Griner to an uncharacteristic slow start.
Griner, who scored a game-high 25 points, went scoreless for more than 11 minutes to start the game.
The 6-foot-8 junior center did not attempt a shot until the 10:18 mark and failed to score until there was 8:18 left to play in the first half.
“Our defensive gameplan … was to just try to be in position to discourage the pass from going in (to Griner),” Butler said. “We didn’t want to try to double or … have some scheme for how we’ll guard her after she gets the ball because it’s just frankly not what we’ve done all year.”
After Griner’s first points, Baylor’s Kimetria Hayden hit a shot beyond the arc to give the Bears a 15-point lead, their largest of the game up to that point.
Then, Florida responded with a 9-0 run, bolstered by two 3-pointers from Andrea Vilaro Aragones. The stretch helped the Gators cut the lead to six points and go into halftime trailing the Bears 35-26.
It was the fewest first-half points UF has scored since a 75-59 loss to Tennessee on Feb. 26.
“I felt like we [were] in the game still,” senior guard Deana Allen said. “I felt like we hung in there in the first half.”
After the break, Griner came out firing, scoring Baylor’s first six points. She punctuated the spurt by cutting past Florida’s Azania Stewart in the paint, catching a pass from Hayden and dunking the basketball to open up a 41-28 lead.
When Griner’s fingers touched the rim, she became just the second woman to ever dunk in the NCAA Tournament.
“I mean, it’s a great play, you know, most women can’t do that,” Stewart said. “I think we bounced back great from there. I don’t think it affected us that much.”
Griner came close to a double-double with nine rebounds, and she blocked a game-high six shots, outdoing Jennifer George’s three.
Despite Griner’s four-inch height advantage over Stewart, UF’s tallest player, the Gators kept pace on the boards, tying the Bears with 43 rebounds.
Florida performed particularly well on the offensive glass thanks to a game-high five offensive rebounds from Deana Allen.
UF grabbed 24 offensive boards, recording an offensive rebounding percentage of 48 percent; the Gators led the Southeastern Conference with 43.7 percent this season.
As a result, Florida outscored Baylor 21-16 in second-chance points, including a 13-6 advantage in the second half.
However, the Gators’ rebounding was not enough as they struggled to overcome foul trouble and poor shooting, which led to a 24-of-33 performance by the Bears at the free-throw line.
UF earned its 10th personal foul of the second half at the 10:29 mark, putting Baylor in the double bonus.
Only 56 seconds later, Ndidi Madu committed an off-ball foul on Griner, a call that ultimately earned Butler a technical foul when she argued it extensively.
“Was I trying to get a technical foul? No, huh-uh. No, I was not,” Butler said.
The loss marks the end of the careers of the Gators’ five seniors: Allen, Jones, Madu, Stewart and Lanita Bartley. Florida finished the season with 20 wins, the second-highest total under Butler in five seasons.
“We played the best team on the best floor, and we gave them our best shot,” Stewart said. “So, we walk out of here with our shoulders high, our heads up.”
A radio broadcast contributed to this report.
Contact Joe Morgan at joemorgan@alligator.org.
Seniors Azania Stewart, Jordan Jones and Deana Allen embrace following their season-ending NCAA Tournament loss to Baylor on Tuesday.
Florida center Azania Stewart (13) and guard Deana Allen defend 6-foot-8 Baylor center Brittany Griner during Florida’s 76-57 loss in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on Tuesday.
