Gators Rally removes Tar Heels in their backyard

CHARLOTTE, NC – With just over four minutes left and his team down by four, coach Florida Todd Golden huddled with his players on the floor of the NBA Coliseum, teeming with fans decked out overwhelmingly in sky blue and reveling in a ferocious comeback that 30 minutes earlier had crippled the Gators and was on their heels.

What now? How would a team that had won all 10 games to open the season by double digits respond to a deficit, with its back against the wall and under duress?

Golden got his answer by looking into his players’ eyes.

“I saw no disappointment. No finger pointing,” he said. “I saw guys that were poised and ready to attack the last four minutes, defend and rebound and take care of the ball.”

Less than two minutes later, the game was tied and the Gators were on their way to score the final eight points and grab the final six rebounds. When the horn sounded, after four free throws from 2nd year onwards Thomas Haugh and senior guard Will Richard over the final 7.9 seconds, seventh-ranked UF had handed basketball blue-blood North Carolina a 90-84 defeat in the Jumpman Classic to remain undefeated this late in a season for just the second time in the program’s 118-year history.

Richard scored 22 points, including a trio of 3s, and grabbed six rebounds, none bigger than the layup he converted for a go-ahead layup with less than a minute left. Fifth year guard Alijah Martinthe transfer from Florida Atlantic, had 19 points, with five of his team’s last 10 and none bigger than his game-tying 3 with 2:26 left, to go with six rebounds and four assists.

When it was over, the Gators (11-0) spilled onto the floor en masse to celebrate their perfection on a night in which they blew a 17-point first-half lead, surrendered 24 points off 17 turnovers, allowed 63 percent shooting in the second half and were far, far from perfect.

So much for that streak of 10 consecutive double-digit wins and cool 21.5 point average margin of victory to start the season. Florida needed a test like this in a hostile atmosphere with everything seemingly stacked against them. To escape with scoring leader Walter Clayton Jr. held to just 12 points on 4-for-15 overall and 1-for-7 from deep — and still score 90 points — was further evidence of the team’s versatility and depth, with Haugh contributing nine points and six boards off the bench and junior co-reserve Denzel Aberdeen going 5-for-6 from the floor on his was for 12 points. Sophomore forward Alex Condon had nine points and 10 rebounds.

“In this type of environment, you get the best out of everybody,” said Martin, who also had a Clayton-like shooting day of five-of-17 and 2-for-12, but made a really big long one when it mattered. “You see the type of leadership you have and it gives you confidence going into a stretch of the season when you have to come out of the muck.”

Richard would go along with that line of thinking, wouldn’t he?

“I won’t lie, I’d much rather win by a good amount,” he said. “But we know the rest of the season won’t be easy. It will definitely prepare us for the (Southeastern Conference). It’s good to face some adversity.”

More than a little, actually. The Gators started red-hot, hitting 17 of their first 30 shots and seven of 14 from distance to go up 44-27 with just over two minutes left in the half before the Tar Heels (6-5) scored seven of the final nine points of the period to break with a dozen.

Golden told his players at halftime that Carolina, after shooting just 29.7 percent and going 2-for-16 from the arc, wasn’t going down without a fight. He was right.

The Tar Heels suffocated the Gators in the opening three minutes out of the locker room, scoring the first 11 points of the period – capped by an 18-2 run that bridged the halves – to pull within 46-45, igniting the local fan base , before Haugh stopped the bleeding with a 3-pointer.

“I wasn’t happy with the way we performed coming out of the break,” he said. “It’s really the first time all year where we’ve allowed a team to dictate the terms of the game, but credit them. I thought they were a lot more aggressive defensively and trying to get downhill and drive the ball.”

Were they ever. The Tar Heels went just 3-of-12 from the arc in the second half — five-of-28 for the game (17.9 percent) — but hit 19 of their first 22 shots from 2-point range to get to the final, frantic two minutes when the match was decided.

The final nearly eight minutes included six lead changes and four ties, with Carolina snapping one of the former after a Clayton 3-point play with a driving Davis layup followed by an alley-oop dunk in transition by Jalen Washingotn on a beautiful feed from Cadeau (11 points, 7 assists) that brought the house down, put the Heels in front, 81-77, with four minutes to play and forced Golden to call a timeout for to settle things down.

As he learned in the huddle, his players were already settled.

“We haven’t had a game like this this year,” Golden said. “To be able to push through in a game we were behind, to go back and forth in the second half was obviously great for us.”

Especially with how it turned out in the final minutes. UF trailed 82-79 when Martin, 1-for-10 from distance to that point, laid up and buried a 3 to tie the game with 2:26 left.

“Unshakable faith, positive faith and dependence on the Lord,” Martin said of his mentality after missing nine of his first 10 longs. “Just confidence in myself, really. I work my ass off. Big-time players make big plays.”

He wasn’t done either. Neither were the Gators. Another UNC layup, this one by Cadeau (his team’s fifth straight make), put the Heels back in front at 84-82. As it turned out, that would be Carolina’s last point.

Two Martin free throws tied the score at 84, and on UNC’s end, Martin knocked the ball off the legs of the driving Cadeau and out of bounds to force a turnover with 1:27 left. That’s when UF worked the clock and Martin positioned himself for a turn-around jumper that missed, with Richard underneath to grab the rebound and put the ball in for an 86-84 lead with 56 seconds left. Timeout, Carolina.

Fifteen seconds into the Heels’ next possession, Davis found himself wide open and got a nice look for a 3, but the ball ran away for his eighth miss in 11 attempts and into Martin’s hands with 47 seconds left. The Gators ran a long possession and had to settle for a late Martin 3 that was knocked off, but this time it was Haugh down for the offensive rebound, foul and two free throws to go up by four with 7.9 left.

“I had missed two earlier, so I thought about it a little bit,” Haugh said. “But I went up and was good.”

What was Martin saying about “big-time” players and “big-time” games?

Aberdeen fouled Cateau and brought the ball into UNC’s half with 6.2 seconds left, but Cateau missed the front end of a one-and-one, Richard rebounded, sank his two free throws with 3.8 seconds left, and Florida had beaten North Carolina for only the third time and handed the Heels their first loss in the three Jumpman events.

Perhaps more significantly, the Gators now have a reference point from which to draw upon when the inevitable adversity — anyone checked the SEC lately? – beats them down the line. And it will.

There will be more huddles like the revealing one Golden looked into Tuesday.

“Honestly, it was as much about how I felt than they did. I had to calm myself down a little bit because I was a little wired and kind of disappointed with some of the things we were doing,” said Golden. “But our guys answered the bell.”

Email senior writer Chris Harry at [email protected]