The Florida Gators must not have liked the way that sloppy NCAA tournament opener against No. 16-seeded Albany felt or looked because they broke out their No. 1 hustle game against Pittsburgh on Saturday.
For openers, the Gators outrebounded Pitt 38-31, and this is a powerful Panthers team that gets half a dozen more than opponents on average. Patric Young and Dorian Finney-Smith led the way for Florida with eight each.
“I just go out there and scrap and fight and claw and try to grab rebounds as best I can,” said Young, who jokingly called himself a dirty player in response to Pitt’s Talib Zanna aiming that shot at him a few days ago. “I know I got more than eight rebounds. I want to go back and look at the film because I was all over the boards today.”
Yes, the top-seeded Gators were feeling their oats after this 61-45 victory. And why not?
The Gators thoroughly disrupted Pitt’s offensive rhythm, forcing 11 turnovers and rolling up 10 steals. It was just the opposite for the Panthers in the 29-point blowout Thursday that opened the tournament for them. Colorado committed 17 turnovers in that game, and many of them led to runouts in what was the easiest Pitt win across an all-time stretch of 50 NCAA tournament games.
“They’re the most physical team we’ve played all year long,” Pitt coach Jamie Dixon said of Florida. “They’re got size all the way through and they use it. … We tried to cut, we tried to curl, we tried to go to the basket, and we just bounced off of them.
“I think people try to find something wrong with this team at 34-2 and there’s not a lot wrong with them.”
Yeguete a 'dirty-work guy': Will Yeguete only scored eight points for Florida, but, as usual, his energy made a big difference. During one wild scoring play, the senior forward chased down a loose ball and passed it behind his back while tiptoeing along the sideline. The ball went to Casey Prather streaking out in front of the defense for a layup.
Yeguete missed Florida’s run to the Elite Eight in 2012 with a broken foot and was limited by a knee injury during last year’s NCAA tournament. The Gators need as much as they can get from him now, especially on the multiple defensive rotations that only a four-year player could hope to master in coach Billy Donovan’s system.
“I’ve always tried to talk to Will about how much I appreciate him because he really impacts winning,” Donovan said. “What he does is really rare. It’s hard to find guys that really kind of hang their hat on being a dirty-work guy. It’s hard sometimes because it doesn’t really give them a lot of headlines. He’s not a headline guy.”
Looking ahead for Gators: For what it's worth in measuring Florida's readiness for a long run, Pitt came closer this season to beating Virginia, another of the No. 1 seeds in this tournament.
The 26-10 Panthers lost 51-48 to Virginia in the ACC tournament semifinals. Earlier, in a February home game, Pitt also pushed the Cavaliers, losing 48-45.
Whoever Florida plays Thursday in the South Region semifinals at Memphis will be tougher to outscore than Pitt, which on Saturday became the fourth UF opponent in the last seven games to be held under 50 points.
UCLA ranks 10th nationally with an average of 81.7 points per game. Stephen F. Austin, the Bruins’ opponent Sunday night in the Round of 32, ranks 44th with 76.5 per game.
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