Junior forward Colin Castleton scored 15 of his 19 points after halftime, grabbed a career-high 14 rebounds and blocked three shots, but it was sophomore guard Tre Mann's step-back 3-pointer with 23 seconds remaining that daggered the 10th-seeded Hokies and advanced the No. 7-seed Gators in the NCAA South Region first-rounder Friday at Hinkle Field House in Indianapolis.
UF led by just one with the shot clock running down, when Mann, the first-team All-Southeastern Conference selection, took his defender to right wing, jab-stepped him that stepped back and swished 3-ball for his 12, 13th and 14th points of the game and take the score to two possessions. The Gators led by six with less than three minutes to go in regulation, but the Hokies seized on UF turnovers and missed opportunities at the free-throw line and send the game into overtime in dramatic fashion.
Florida forward Anthony Duruji, his team up by three, missed two free throws with 7.3 seconds left, either of which would have made it a two-possession game. Tech rebounded, worked the ball into the front court and red-hot guard Nahiem Alleyne, who bombed a 3-pointer with 1.7 seconds left for the tie.
The shot gave Alleyne, who finished with a career-high 30 points, 14 straight points for the Hokies and sent the game into OT tied at 64. An old-fashion 3-point play by Castleton gave the Gators a three-point cushion and they never trailed the rest of the way en route to shooting 56.5 percent for the game and defending Tech to 42.1 percent, including just 2-for-7 in the overtime. In addition to Mann's 14 points, three rebounds and four assists, the Gators also got 15 points and four rebounds from backup guard Scottie Lewis. Junior shooting guard Noah Locke added 10, as UF had to navigate both the loss of fourth-year junior guard Tyree Appleby, who left the game in the second half with a bloody gash to his forehead, as well as sophomore forward Omar Payne, who did not play, presumably as a response to the Flagrant-2 foul that got him ejected from the SEC Tournament loss against Tennessee. Alleyne went 8-for-18 from the floor, 4-for-10 from the arc and hit 10 of 13 free throws.
WHAT IT MEANS: The Gators keep playing. On to the Round of 32 (read on). Coming into the event, there were 11 teams in the country that had won at least one game in each NCAA Tournament since 2017. Two of those teams were Duke and Kentucky, neither of which made the field. Another was Michigan State, which lost in Thursday night's so-called "play-in" game to UCLA. So it's now eight teams (that number subject to shrinking even more, of course, with outcomes over the next two days) and Florida is one of them.
IN THE SPOTLIGHT: That version of Castleton looked like the one who was roaming the paint during the midseason, back when he was shooting 64 percent on the season (through January) as opposed to his 48 percent in the more than six weeks since. Castleton, with Payne sidelined, also logged a season-high 43 minutes, suggesting maybe he's worked through the conditioning struggles he had after returning following a COVID pause. He finished 6-for-8 from the floor and 7-for-8 from the free-throw line.
STAGGERING STATISTIC: The Gators won a razor-thin close game despite turning the ball over 18 times and making just 18 of 27 free throws (66.7 percent).
UP NEXT: Florida (15-9) gets the winner of the late-afternoon Friday game between No. 2-seed Ohio State (21-9) and 15th-seeded Oral Roberts (16-10). Pretty safe assumption that team will be the Buckeyes, who just a couple weeks ago were projected as a possible No. 1 seed until a four-game losing skid to end the regular season (against four NCAA teams) left them fifth in the Big Ten, the nation's top conference this season. OSU, though, reached the league's tournament title game, losing to second-ranked Illinois in overtime. As for the Buckeyes' chances against Oral Roberts? No. 2 seeds are 132-8 all-time against 15s.
