The stock of Mike White’s Florida team drastically increased on Friday as the Gators took down LSU, the SEC’s No. 1 seed in the SEC Tournament, in Nashville thanks to a 76-73 win that came in the closing seconds of the contest.

The Gators entered the tournament as a bubble team but the win all but assures Florida will be playing in the NCAA Tournament. After the game, White spoke about the message the win sent, as well as the final play call.

what statement does Florida make after the win:

“That we are pretty good. Our league is so good, it’s ridiculous. From top to bottom, to be as competitive as we were against these guys to get them twice, that says a lot about the heart and character of our team. The development of this team over time. Those guys are terrific. How the heck do you guard Naz Reid? How do you guard Tremont Waters? We scored enough down the stretch, it was huge for us.”

on the technical foul call against Tony Bedford:

“Six points for us and for us, points were hard to come by all year so we’ll take them. Any time we can get Keyveon Allen to the foul line, he’s the best in school history.”

on the final play and the call he made: 

“It was drawn up to the tune of we wanted to run something but LSU comes out in a 1-3-1. They do a great job of changing defenses, this was our guys playing in space. That’s our 1-3-1 attack. Kayontae has gotten better at playing off two feet and under control, making good decisions as kind of a point forward for us and Andrew hits a huge shot.”

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