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Florida Wins One for the Grinders - New York Times

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Sports |Florida Wins One for the Grinders



http://nyti.ms/1l9b1cm


Sports |South: Florida 79, U.C.L.A. 68





Florida guard Scottie Wilbekin, driving past U.C.L.A.’s Norman Powell, left, and Travis Wear, scored 13 points. Mark Humphrey/Associated Press









MEMPHIS — This March has been all about referendums in college basketball. The teams with early-exit N.B.A. players versus senior-laden teams. New rules against hand-checking versus letting the players be physical. The resurgent Pacific-12 versus the steady Big Ten.


On Thursday night, U.C.L.A. and Florida offered a debate about freewheeling basketball versus the drip, drip, drip of a team using all 35 seconds of the shot clock and grinding away. In the end, drip and grind took apart flair and finesse with effort and discipline, and with the help of a 3-point marksman.


The Florida sophomore guard Michael Frazier II, who was 3 for 13 shooting 3-point field goals in the first two games of the tournament, made 5 of 8 3-pointers and scored 19 points to lead the top-seeded Gators (35-2) to a 79-68 victory over the fourth-seeded Bruins (28-9) in a South Regional semifinal.



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U.C.L.A.’s slack defense on the ball allowed Florida guards Scottie Wilbekin and Kasey Hill to get into the lane and make passes for easy baskets inside. The Bruins could not contend with the Gators’ foul line pick-and-roll or find Frazier around the 3-point line. For all of its offensive ability, U.C.L.A. just could not do enough on the defensive end as Florida shot 50 percent from the field.





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The Gators led by 50-39 with 15 minutes 49 seconds remaining before U.C.L.A. surged back to cut the lead to 56-55. Florida then went on a 9-0 run to take control, setting up a meeting with Dayton (26-10) in the regional championship game Saturday at FedEx Forum.


U.C.L.A. led the Pac-12 in shooting percentage (49.1) but was held to 42.2 percent by Florida. The sophomore guard Jordan Adams led the Bruins with 17 points. The sophomore point guard Kyle Anderson had 11 points, but he was unable to control the game with passing wizardry the way he had so many times this season.




Norman Powell of U.C.L.A. chases a loose ball ahead of Michael Frazier II, center, and Will Yeguete of Florida. Nelson Chenault/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

Thirteen minutes into the game, Florida was in control, 28-21, displaying its cohesiveness with 9 assists on 10 field goals. The Gators created baskets with pick-and-rolls at the free-throw line against man-to-man defense, and they wheeled the ball around the perimeter when U.C.L.A. played a zone. Three times in the first 10 minutes, the Bruins lost track of Frazier, who made three 3-pointers.


The Gators got a lift from one of their few blue-chip players, the 6-foot-10 freshman forward Chris Walker, who scored 5 points in four minutes in the first half. A McDonald’s all-American last year who was considered to be a one-and-done player off early to the N.B.A., Walker did not play until February because of a suspension. He never started a game and rarely played more than seven minutes a game because he could not keep up on defense, but his scoring helped the Gators’ bench outscore the Bruins’ reserves, 13-7, in the first half. It was valuable relief for the starting center Patric Young, who had two fouls in the first half.


The Bruins found offense with 11 fast-break points in the first half, and they were fast enough on defense to get four steals and force seven turnovers. The U.C.L.A. players showed skill on the break with dribble drives and spin moves, but they also committed seven first-half turnovers and showed how much of a struggle it was going to be against the Gators’ defense.



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