The Florida Gators men’s basketball team (17-9, 8-5 SEC) battled hard to defeat the Georgia Bulldogs (14-10, 7-6 SEC) for the second time this season, this time on the Dawgs turf in Athens, Georgia on Tuesday night.
Florida managed to take off with an early 4-0 run, building confidence that they could defeat Georgia at home, just like they did last month in Gainesville. However, the Bulldogs came back swinging with a 6-2 run to tie up the game at six with 15:55 to go in the first half.
The game remained close, with the lead bouncing back and forth before tying up again at 18 after a trey from KeVaughn Allen with 8:13 on the clock. The next basket was not made until a whole five minutes later when Georgia’s Yante Maten made a three-point basket.
In the final seven minutes of the half, the Gators only scored one point – a free throw from Justin Leon – that was made with 1:53 left in the first. While UF struggled on offense, UGA was not much better. Despite the Gators not scoring a basket from the field for a long stretch, the Bulldogs still did not pull away too far. The half ended with Florida trailing by just six at 25-19.
Coming back from the half it seemed like Gator head coach got to John Egbunu, as he came out with back-to-back baskets ending with an Egbunu slam. With his effort the Gators were within just two points of the Bulldogs lead at 23-25 in under two minutes.
The game remained close with Georgia only getting as high as a seven-point lead on two occasions before Florida came back to tie it up twice before pulling away with a five-point lead. That was the Gators largest lead of the half, ending with yet another Egbunu slam dunk with just 2:07 left to play.
With just a minute left on the clock the Gators still held a five-point lead and they thought they had the game. That is until Kenny Gaines popped up with a basket from downtown to make it a two-point game with just 36 seconds to play.
Fortunately for the Gator Nation, Georgia fouled one of the Gators’ best free throw shooters, Chris Chiozza, who made two shots from the charity stripe to extend Florida’s lead back to four points with 32 seconds on the clock.
Just when the Gators thought the game was theirs, Georgia’s Gaines came back again with a clutch three-point basket to make it a one-point game with 25 seconds to go. The Dawgs fouled Dorian Finney-Smith, who extended the Gators’ lead back to three at 56-53 with 19 seconds left.
The nail-biter finally ended after Allen added final point with a free throw to put the Gators lead at 57-53 for the final score.