Florida Gators knock out Pittsburgh, advance to Sweet 16
Everyone expected a down and dirty wrestling match. And for a half, they were right.
And then, Scottie Wilbekin played Mr. Clean.
Wilbekin, the SEC's player of the year, reeled off 13 points in a late six-minute span to will the Florida Gators past the University of Pittsburgh 61-45 in the South Region's third round here Saturday.
The result sends Florida to the Sweet 16 for the fourth straight season, with the winner of UCLA-Stephen F. Austin up next. The Gators (34-2) also extended their school-record winning streak to 28 games.
Wilbekin, UF's senior point guard, finished with a game-high 21 points on 9 of 15 shooting. How important was he to the Gators' success? The seven other Florida players who saw the floor missed 27 of their 43 attempts from the field.
'Coach [Billy Donovan] was really getting on us and challenging us,' Wilbekin said, when asked about the message after the team's uninspiring win over Albany Thursday. 'He was asking us if that was the team we wanted to be in the last couple of games that we had. We wanted to come out and not let them play harder than us.'
No one played harder than Wilbekin, who logged 32 minutes -- many of which were spent chasing star Panthers forward Lamar Patterson around the court.
And he would have played even more had he not banged knees late in regulation (Wilbekin believes the injury is just a bruise, and expects to be fine).
His hot shooting will (rightly) get the headlines Sunday. But the real difference was Florida's effort on the other end of the floor.
The Panthers (25-10) missed 60 percent of their shots in the first half, and mustered just 22 points.
And then the Gators really started playing defense.
Put simply, Pittsburgh couldn't make a shot after halftime. The Panthers scored just five points in the first 10:30 of the second half. By then, they had fallen too far behind to make a game of it late.
'Both halves were good [defensively],' Donovan said, 'but in particular, the second half was really good.'
In all, the Gators held the Panthers to just 37 percent shooting -- including 4 of 17 from behind the 3-point arc -- and forced 11 turnovers.
The most emphatic: A sequence in which Wilbekin stole the ball near mid-court and threw it ahead to Casey Prather, who lobbed it to Patric Young for an explosive dunk.
The bucket came in the midst of a 14-4 run that essentially put the game out of reach. Young struggled from the field Saturday, but still managed seven points, eight rebounds and four blocks.
Michael Frazier II added 10 points for the Gators. Talib Zanna (10) was the only Panthers player in double figures.
Florida also beat up Pitt on the boards, out-rebounding the Panthers 38-31.
'People try to find something wrong with this team at 34-2,' said Pitt coach Jamie Dixon. 'There's not a lot wrong with them.'
Well perhaps one quibble: they don't exactly play pretty.
An ugly, yet competitive first half featured three ties and nine lead changes, with neither side leading by more than 5. The Gators missed 16 of their first 27 shots; the Panthers missed 15 of their first 25.
And yet, Pitt looked poised to go into the break down just 2 until UF capitalized on a befuddling mental breakdown.
Pittsburgh, with two fouls to give and less than four seconds left in the period, somehow allowed Wilbekin to weave through the defense and get off a buzzer-beating 3. Dixon later blamed himself for the mistake.
It allowed the Gators to go into the break up 27-22 and with all the momentum. The 22 points were the fewest Florida has allowed in the first half in seven weeks.
Half No. 2 was no better for Pittsburgh.
UF men 61, Pittsburgh 45
Everyone expected a down and dirty wrestling match. And for a half, they were right.
South Regional | No. 1 UF vs. No. 9 Pittsburgh, 12:15 p.m., CBS
Between the Gators and Panthers, there will be blood. Or at least some deep bruises.
It took until the second half, but Scottie Wilbekin and the Florida Gators played like the NCAA Tournament's top seed on Saturday en route to reaching another Sweet 16.
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