BY: Jenna Ladd
The Florida Gators were unable to execute an effective offense resulting in a hard fall of 66-47 against the Missouri Tigers on Sunday afternoon in the Mizzou Arena.
Ronni Williams and Cassie Peoples both put up 12 points, leading Florida. Kayla Lewis once again led in rebounds, raking in 11 while still managing to score seven points. In a turn of events, Carlie Needles was replaced in the starting lineup by freshman Brooke Copeland who brought in a total of eight points.
With Missouri being one of the nation’s best three-point shooting teams, Florida had its work cut out for Sunday’s matchup. In the first half, the game seemed as if it could go either way with no team falling far behind. Initially, the Gators were able to put up a fight and take the lead of 24-22 at halftime.
Even though the beginning of the game was back-and-forth, the Tigers came back determined to take the lead in the second half. With seven of Mizzou’s first eight field goals being three-pointers, Florida started to lag behind. The Gators fought to come back and freshman Dyandria Anderson hit a jumper that tied the score at 34 with 12:24 remaining.
Missouri had a fire under them after Florida tied up the game and fired off two back-to-back three-pointers that kick-started an 8-0 run. Cassie Peoples was able to slow down the Tigers’ momentum with two free throws that helped the Gators stay in the game. Mizzou came back with another three followed by a Florida three-pointer by Copeland that kept Florida within six points with 9:45 left to play.
“You have to give them a lot of credit for how they played in the second half,” said Gator head coach Amanda Butler. “They shot the ball with a great deal of confidence, they do what they do. We had some key defensive breakdowns and really struggled offensively to a great shooting team on their home court.”
Despite the Gators’ strong efforts to keep a close game, they were unable to get any more baskets until the 2:23 mark when Williams converted a three-point-play. At this point, Florida’s scoring drought did a serious amount of damage, leaving them behind Mizzou at 63-45. During those 7:32 minutes of no Florida baskets, Missouri took off with a 13-0 run.
After such a rough end to the second half, the Gators were left with a season-low shooting percentage of 23 percent, while the Tigers had a shooting percentage of 50 percent in the second half. Florida’s head coach Amanda Butler was not impressed with the shooting of the Gators, but said that it was not anything new to them, unfortunately.
“We shot poorly and unfortunately that’s not a new trend for us. That’s why it’s just so important that we don’t have those defensive breakdowns, in particular defensive breakdowns as rebounders,” Butler said. “If you’re not going to shoot well, we have to have a heroic effort on the boards and we didn’t have that. You can’t count on your shots to fall on the road but you can count on the way you defend and the way you rebound and that was not there for us tonight.”
Florida will continue on the road with the next game against Kentucky on Thursday, January 15 in Lexington, Kentucky. This game starts at 7:00 p.m. and it will be televised on the SEC Network.