ATHENS, GA — The Florida Gators played like a bunch of grown-ups Wednesday night at Stegman Coliseum. Whether the sudden dose of maturity that helped the Gators put a pounding on Georgia is a one-shot deal or a sign of things to come will be determined at a later date but for one night at least, this was exactly what the Gators needed.
Florida’s 77-64 Southeastern Conference win over Georgia ensured that the Gators will finish the regular season with at least a break-even record in league play, quite an accomplishment for the youngest team in the SEC. Break-even won’t necessarily get the Gators (21-7, 8-5) into their tenth straight NCAA Tournament, but a sub-.500 would require them to get some wins at the SEC Tournament.
The Gators still have work to do to ensure they will make the NCAA but the remaining regular season schedule of back-to-back home games with Mississippi State and Tennessee and a roadie to Lexington to face Kentucky seems a little less imposing now that they’ve pulled off a late season win on the road in one of the toughest places in the SEC for visiting teams to win. Entering the game, Georgia was 11-3 at home with an impressive 22-point non-conference win over Wake Forest. The three losses were to SEC East division foes Tennessee, Vanderbilt and Kentucky.
“I saw some stat on TV watching film — I was watching Georgia play — and they showe a stat of the SEC … the road wins and it’s mind boggling how few road wins there have been this season,” said Florida coach Billy Donovan. “For us to have three road wins and we have two of the next three at home … like I’ve said, if you can ever get four wins in the league on the road you guys have done a remarkable job and we have three right now and we have one more road game left. They’re hard to come by. You have to really enjoy them and be excited when you do get one.”
The Gators got this one because they were able to continue the hot shooting from the outside that got them past South Carolina last week in Gainesville. Georgia went with the if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it approach to defense, figuring that the same zone that limited the Gators to 7-27 shooting from the three-point line a couple of weeks ago in Gainesville would work again in Athens.
It took the Gators less than four minutes to shoot Georgia out of its zone. Nick Calathes knocked down three straight three-pointers, accounting for Florida’s first nine points, and then Walter Hodge got in on the act. When his rainbow three-ball from the top of the key swished though the net with 16:42 left in the half, Georgia called time out and that was the end of the zone.
“We had to get them out of their zone and I think that helped us,” said Calathes, who finished the night with 22 points, seven rebounds, four assists and two steals. “If we can’t hit threes against a zone, we’re in big trouble.”
Florida parlayed that 12-4 start to a 45-32 halftime lead. Once the Bulldogs swapped the ineffective zone for a man-to-man look it took the Gators a couple of possessions to figure out who was guarding who and to adjust, but the rest of the way was clinic basketball. Florida moved the ball effectively on the perimeter, got whatever shot they wanted on the inside and they converted six Georgia turnovers into 10 points.
“Our guys shot the ball well and the fact that we made some shots early in the game really helped us against their zone because they were really trying to pack the zone and take away Marreese (Speights) and Dan (Werner) in the middle and take away passing angles so we had to shoot the ball over the top,” said Florida coach Billy Donovan. “We were fortunate enough to get some clean looks and I think we were fortunate that they went down.”
Once Georgia was out of the zone, that opened the middle for Speights who was bothered early by all the hands and elbows in his face every time the ball went into the low blocks. When Georgia had to go man-to-man, there wasn’t a lot of help for bigs Dave Bliss, Albert Jackson and Jeremy Price on the defensive end. Those three combined to score 32 points and grab 20 rebounds, but they couldn’t stop Speights, who had 15 points, 10 rebounds and two blocked shots.
“Our shooters were hot and they hit some shots so that made them play man-to-man,” said Speights. “We’ve got a lot of good shooters so when we’re making some shots they can’t play zone against us.”
The Bulldogs so intent on stopping Speights inside that they practically forgot about Werner, who burned them from the outside with three threes and killed them on the inside with five offensive rebounds. Werner finished with 13 points, eight rebounds, two assists, a blocked shot and two steals.
Werner thought the Gators would have a real edge once Georgia was forced to try to play it straight up on the defensive end.
“We have so many talented guys who can do so many that it’s really tough to guard us,” said Werner, who has scored in double figures in six of Florida’s last eight games.
Georgia trailed by as many as 14 points in the first half but the Bulldogs did mount one run in the final six minutes that got them within seven on two occasions. The Bulldogs closed the gap to 39-32 with 3:38 remaining when Bliss hit a pair of free throws, but the Gators got the last six points of the half, the final two coming on a Werner stick-back as time ran out.
The zone that wouldn’t work for Georgia worked just fine for the Gators who rarely gave up uncontested shots. The Gators made defending the perimeter priority number one and it paid off handsomely as they limited the Bulldogs to just four first half shots from outside the three-point line. Georgia didn’t knock down a three-pointer until Corey Butler drilled one from the left wing with 16:41. By the time he got that shot to go, the Gators had already scored 21 points on three-pointers.
The Gators, who broke out of a shooting slump against South Carolina by hitting 11-23 on three-pointers, finished Wednesday’s game with a 9-19 effort on threes and 28-53 (52.8 percent) shooting overall. Two weeks ago when Georgia visited Gainesville, the Bulldogs had the hot hand from the three-point line, knocking down 6-14 shots. They managed only 14 three-point shots Wednesday night, but this time they managed to hit only two.
Florida limited Sundiata Gaines to 13 points and six of those came from the foul line. In Gainesville, Gaines went off for a career-high 32 points. Gaines’ partner in the backcourt, Billy Humphrey, came into the game averaging nearly 13 points per game but he went 0-5 from the field and got his only three points from the foul line.
“In the second half the big key for us was we had five straight possessions where they missed shots and we didn’t allow them any second chance opportunities or offensive rebounds and that allowed us to get out on the break,” said Donovan, happy that the Gators limited Georgia to 41.5 percent shooting (22-53) from the field.
This was Florida’s second straight win after that three-point loss in Nashville to Vanderbilt. In that game, the Gators endured their worst three-point shooting night (1-15) of the season and they made critical mistakes that gave the Commodores a win in a game that Florida could have stolen on the road.
“Sometimes you have to hit rock bottom to find out what you’re made of to go forward to take another step as a player,” said Donovan.
If the last two games are any indication, Donovan has the Gators moving forward at just the right time.
GAME NOTES: A rather sparse Georgia crowd had its problems drowning out a large contingent of Florida fans. Prior to the introductions, the Gator fans started chanting “Let’s go Gators!” It took the Georgia band joining in with the booing Georgia fans to drown out the Gators … There was a smattering of boos and almost no applause when Gerogia coach Dennis Felton was introduced … Several scouts from NBA teams including the Los Angeles Lakers, Utah Jazz, Memphis Grizzlies and Cleveland Cavaliers were at the game, specifically to take a look at Speights … Toward the end of the game when the outcome was no longer in doubt, the Georgia student section started chanting, “Let’s play football!” Georgia managed its third win over the Gators in 18 years in football back in November. In basketball, the Gators have now won 10 in a row dating back to 2004 and 17 out of the last 21 … Florida out-rebounded Georgia 32-29 … Jai Lucas had eight points, four assists and zero turnovers to go with one steal … Hodge had eight points and three assists while Chandler Parsons had nine points off the bench including a pair of dunks on the break. The second dunk was on an alley-oop pass from Lucas … The Gators are at home Saturday for a 4 p.m. encounter with Mississippi State, which leads the SEC West.