ORLANDO, Fla. — One of the best teams in SEC history wasn’t going to end up on the wrong side of history.
For nearly 26 minutes, No. 1 overall seed Florida allowed 16th-seeded Albany to entertain the idea of a bracket-shattering upset in Thursday’s second-round matchup of the NCAA Tournament. However, the Gators spent the game’s final stretch reminding the upstate New York upstarts of their place in college basketball’s hierarchy and advanced with a 67-55 win in front of a blue-and-orange-filled Amway Center.
Florida (33-2), which has made three straight Elite Eights and has not lost since Dec. 2 — 27 straight wins — will face ninth-seeded Pittsburgh in the third round on Saturday, a game the Gators won’t take so lightly.
“Maybe we took some things for granted,” senior Scottie Wilbekin said. “We just didn’t play like we need to in the NCAA Tournament and I think we all know that and realize that and are going to make a better effort next time.
“On Saturday, if we do that, we could be down by double-digits in the first half.”
Albany — a 21½ point underdog — was a little more than 14 minutes from becoming the first No. 16 to topple a No. 1, after Peter Hooley tied the game at 39 with four straight points. But it wasn’t long before the Great Danes suffered the same fate of the 116 16-seeds which came before.
Following Hooley’s free throw, Florida’s Patric Young (10 points, 10 rebounds) awoke the crowd and the team after grabbing an offensive rebound and throwing down a violent one-handed dunk for a 3-point play, sparking a 9-0 run and clearing up any confusion about what was supposed to happen.
Albany coach Will Brown’s team, which nearly upset No. 1 UConn as a 16-seed in 2006, would quietly fade, as Florida’s frontline wore them down, outscoring the Great Danes by 26 points in the paint.
“I think we ran out of gas and the best team in the country probably had something to do with it,” said Brown. “A 16 [seed] is going to beat a 1 [seed] at some point and we wanted to be that team. We came here to win. I know a lot people smile about that and think this coach is crazy, these kids are crazy, [but] we believed we could win.”
Great Danes guard D.J. Evans (21 points, seven rebounds) said the team believed, too, as Albany (19-14) opened the game with the lead. Coming off its first-ever NCAA Tournament win — 48 hours and 1,000 miles behind — Albany led by as many as four and was still ahead, 26-24, with seven minutes left in the first half, following an Evans 3-pointer.
In a first half with 11 lead changes, Albany’s inevitable slide began when its shooters went cold — finishing the half 2-of-11 after starting 10-of-15 — leading to a 34-28 halftime deficit.
“In the beginning of the game I felt like we could do it,” said Evans. “We just felt like we wanted to shock the world.”
Not them. Not anyone. Not yet.