The Gators sacrificed blood, sweat and tears to scrape out a win against the Alabama Crimson Tide and break a three-game losing streak on Tuesday.
While coach Billy Donovan was pleased with a win, he recognized Florida (11-9, 4-3 Southeastern Conference) still has a long way to go.
"The last play, defensively they did a nice job," Donovan said of Dorian Finney-Smith’s game-solidifying play against Alabama on Tuesday. "It was good, he took the ball to the rim, I liked that he took the ball to the rim and he made a great play."
The play put Florida up by two points for what would be the deciding score in the 52-50 win over the Crimson Tide (13-7, 3-4 SEC) on the road.
But the final play was far from representative of the game as a whole. Prior to that, the redshirt junior forward was 0-for-5 from the field with four rebounds.
"I just kept playing," Finney-Smith said after the game. "You know, tonight has been a tough night for me but my teammates did a good job
Finney-Smith said he felt like the game-changer on Tuesday was Florida fighting back when Alabama threatened to pull ahead.
"We got stops when we needed them," Finney-Smith said. "Hopefully we can build from that. You know that just shows you how much better we’re getting. At first we couldn’t get those stops and now we’re starting to collect stops."
Like Finney-Smith, junior guard Michael Frazier also struggledon the offensive end against Alabama, and Donovan said he wasn’t surprised. Frazier missed all four shots he took from the field — snapping his school-record 41 straight games with a three-point basket.
"I think he was hurt, and I didn’t know if he was going to play (Tuesday) at shoot around. He wasn’t himself with the hip bruise or whatever it was and he just wasn’t himself," Donovan said of Frazier. "We didn’t really get too much from him at all today."
The Gators got a lot more from Chris Walker than they’ve become accustomed to. The sophomore forward contributed 12 points in just 17 minutes.
But neither his performance nor redshirt junior guard Eli Carter’s team-leading 13 points could improve the overall opinion Donovan has of his young team.
Donovan cited the squandering of the 13-point lead, and the team’s failure to score more than seven points in the opening 12 minutes of the second half as specific examples of where the Gators failed to show up down the stretch.
"I’m happy we won the game, don’t get me wrong, but I was not happy at all with the way we played in the second half," Donovan said. "But we managed to hang on and make a couple of plays and with the game."
Follow Erica A. Hernandez on Twitter @EricaAlyss
Michael Frazier II drives into the paint during Florida's win against Auburn.
