Gators edge ‘Bama on Doe-Doe’s sick dunk at crunch time

UF's Chris Walker scored 12 points in Tuesday's 52-50 win at Alabama.

UF’s Chris Walker scored 12 points in Tuesday’s 52-50 win at Alabama.

Published on Tuesday, 1/27/15, at 11:13 p.m. Eastern.

This was at Kansas all over again for Florida. The Gators played great in the first half, only to go ice cold offensively in the second half.

This time around, however, Billy Donovan’s team prevailed at Alabama thanks to a pair of monster plays from Dorian Finney-Smith at crunch time.

With time dripping off the shot clock, ‘Doe Doe’ refused to settle for a contested 3-pointer like he did in Saturday’s 72-71 loss at Ole Miss. Instead, Finney-Smith gave a shot fake before driving hard to his right at the rim. The result looked like this.

Finney-Smith flushed perhaps the sickest dunk in UF history to untie the game with 17 ticks remaining. Alabama attempted to draw even but its last-second shot was rejected by Finney-Smith.

Florida won by a 52-50 count to either push or win for its backers. The Gators went up to two-point favorites before tip, but they were favored by one or 1.5 points for most of the day.

UF improved to 11-9 overall and 4-3 in SEC play. The Gators have beaten ‘Bama in 12 of the last 13 head-to-head meetings.

Eli Carter and Chris Walker had 13 and 12 points, respectively. Finney-Smith’s dunk provided his only points of the game. Michael Frazier II, who had 27 points Saturday in Oxford, saw his school-record of at least one made 3-pointer in 41 straight games come to an end. He missed all four of his shot attempts for the game.

Walker made 6-of-8 shots from the field. He had not scored in double figures since the aforementioned loss at KU, where UF blew a 17-point second-half advantage.

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