[Westside]

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — After Wednesday night's downer of a home defeat against South Carolina, forward Egor Koulechov summed up the frustration of his Florida teammates and coaches — the ones who'd celebrated a once-in-a-Big-Blue-moon win at Kentucky just four nights earlier — by stating the Gators' rollercoaster ways had to stop.

Their first chance to do something about it came Saturday against Baylor in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. The 20th-ranked Gators were sensational on both ends, led by senior point guard Chris Chiozza's 20 points and near-flawless floor game that helped accentuate a stellar afternoon of UF shooting in an 81-60 wire-to-wire rout at the sold-out Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center.

Chiozza hit seven of his 10 field-goal attempts, including 4-for-7 from the 3-point line, to go with six rebounds, six assists and just one turnover in 30 minutes, at one point pouring in 13 straight points over a four-and-a-half minute span to help the Gators to a 12-point halftime lead. Junior guard Jalen Hudson came off the bench to score 17 points, including 10 straight during a stretch of the second half, while Koulechov, who hit his first three 3s of the game, had 16 points and eight rebounds.

So, look who's riding high again.

For now.

"Just coming out and having focus and playing hard. Our lack of focus against South Carolina was what killed us," Chiozza said of his team's successful formula Saturday. "Making shots helps with scoring points, but defense is all on us. If we play defense, we're going to win most of the time."

True. The Gators (15-6) defended the much bigger Bears (12-9) with considerably more physicality and desire than demonstrated in the loss to the Gamecocks. For UF, maybe it was the red-hot manner it opened the game, especially from the 3-point line, where the Gators nailed seven of their first eight on the way to shooing 58 percent overall for the first half and leading 43-31 at the break. The Gators also were much better closing out the 3-point line, where Baylor hit just three of its 15 attempts. The Bears came into the game as a poor 3-point shooting team to begin with, but so did South Carolina the other night and UF got bombarded from deep in that one.

Florida held Baylor to just 40 percent overall and the Bears' top two scorers, point guard Manu Lecomte (10 points, 3 assists) and 7-foot forward Jo Lual-Acuil Jr. (9 points, 5 rebounds), well below their averages.

"It's very encouraging. Very pleased with our effort today, especially defensively," UF coach Mike White said. "We didn't put 40 [minutes] together, but it's probably as good a defensive performance as we've played against a very good offensive team that executes really well. Obviously, we hit a bunch of shots, but I thought we showed character. Our guys let it be known that it's important to us to be better than we've been on the defensive end. It was a big bounce-back game for us."

The carom was immediate.


Grad-transfer forward Egor Koulechov hit a trio of 3-pointers in the game's first four minutes on his way to 16 points and eight rebounds.

Florida never trailed, scoring the game's first five points, with Koulechov nailing a trio of 3s inside the first four minutes. Midway through the first half and leading by nine, Chiozza outscored Baylor 13-7 himself, from the 9:14 mark to the 4:46 mark, by nailing three 3-pointers, hitting two free throws and smartly posting the foul-plagued Lecomte for a turn-around jumper. The Bears had no answer.

"With great players, you [have to] pick and choose, so we tried to take away his passing and he got us with his scoring," Baylor coach Scott Drew said of Chiozza. "He's one of the best point guards in the country and everyone will agree on that, but when he's scoring on top of his facilitating then he just goes to another level."

That's exactly what happened in this one.

"Chris Chiozza was amazing," White said. "He put on a show."

Hudson, meanwhile, had his moments in a supporting role.

Baylor reserve forward Terry Mason scored three straight field goals in the post to cut the Florida lead to just 10 with under 11 minutes left. That's when Hudson showed up.

First he pulled up and hit a jumper from the elbow. Then came back-to-back 3s, both contested by the Bears' length on the perimeter. Just like that, after eight straight, the Gators lead was 18, as Baylor called timeout.

The Bears got a bucket out of the stoppage, but Hudson quickly negated it with another jumper, then showed on defense with a steal (one of his three for the game) that was forwarded to Koulechov for a run-out layup and 20-point lead that eventually swelled to as many as 24.

"Adversity helps get you more on edge," Koulechov said of the overall burst of energy demonstrated by his team Saturday. "We just have to be more consistent now."

So was this a first step toward consistency or just another high in this theme-park, thrill-ride season? Was this good Florida or rollercoaster Florida?

Tune in next time (Tuesday at Georgia).

"We were flying around, but can we maintain it? We did it today, but can we do it Tuesday night, because we've shown we'll pick our spots and do it," White said. "I hope our guys get to the point — before the season expires — that we take complete ownership of it ourselves, and get a few more guys that do their job consistently on defense and on the glass because they want to; because it's important to them; because they want to play with that amount of pride."

http://floridagators.com/news/2018/1/27/...bears.aspx