Patric Young stood at the free throw line with 9:44 left in the second half with 999 career points. With No. 13 Florida already up 61-24 against Savannah State, the most suspenseful part of Sunday afternoon’s game was whether Young would become the 50th Gator to score 1,000 career points.
The senior center did pass the milestone in Florida’s 76-34 victory, but the career 55 percent free throw shooter failed to accomplish the feat from the charity stripe. Instead, Young made the fans wait another two minutes when he put back a Casey Prather missed shot for points 1,000 and 1,001.
Young finished the night with a game-high 15 points on 7-of-10 shooting and six rebounds.
“I wouldn’t want to have this done any place else except the University of Florida and under coach (Billy) Donovan,” Young said.
And when he was asked if it mattered how he hit the 1,000-point mark, Young had one regret.
“I wish I would have hit that free throw,” he joked.
But when Donovan addressed the team’s troubles at the line, he wasn’t laughing.
The Gators dominated the Tigers from the opening tipoff both offensively and defensively, but they struggled in two areas, Donovan said.
“The only thing that I would say is a negative is: one, I didn’t like our assist-turnover ratio,” he said. “And the other thing too was I thought we did a terrific job of getting to the free throw line, but we didn’t shoot the ball well from the free throw line.”
Florida only sunk 19 of its 32 shots from the line, and its assist to turnover ratio was 11:13.
But Donovan said other than those two areas, the Gators showed major improvements on defense and much higher efficiency on shooting the ball from the field and beyond the arc.
The 49 percent shooting performance was the highest for the Gators since its buzzer-beater loss to UConn on Dec. 2 when they also shot just shy of 50 percent.
Florida will play its final non-conference game of the regular season Saturday against Richmond in the O’Connell Center. The Gators first Southeastern Conference game comes just four days later against South Carolina.
“Once we get to next Saturday, it’s a nine-week grind,” Donovan said. “It’ll be a battle every game.”
Follow Jonathan Czupryn on Twitter @jczupryn
Senior center Patric Young exits the game Sunday night against Savannah State after eclipsing 1,000 career points in the second half. Young became the 50th Gators player to reach the milestone.
