Special report on the Florida Gators women’s basketball team:
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – For just the fifth time in program history, Florida women’s basketball knocked-off Tennessee, downing the No. 7 ranked Lady Volunteers, 84-59, inside of Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center on Thursday night.
Handing the Lady Vols (19-3, 8-2 SEC) their largest loss to an unranked opponent since the debut of the AP Poll in 1976, Florida (16-6, 6-3 SEC) put the clamps down defensively, forcing Tennessee into 18 total turnovers while holding the opposition to 24-of-64 shooting (37.5%) from the floor. The opposition was also held scoreless over the last 5:10 of the game.
Led by veteran guard Kiara Smith with four steals, the Gators tallied 11 total on the evening, helping them to a 26-5 advantage in points-off-turnovers and 24-1 advantage in fast break points. Both numbers were the largest margins of the season for the Gators.
Perhaps just as important, the No. 7 Lady Vols entered the contest out-rebounding their opponents by over 16 rebounds per game. Rising to the challenge, the Orange & Blue ended up outrebounding Tennessee, 40-38, led by Nina Rickards with a season-high eight. Zippy Broughtonpulled-down six of her own while Emanuely de Oliveira and Smith each grabbed five.
Offensively, Smith was once again the leader with 25 points on 9-of-15 shooting to go along with five rebounds, five assists and four steals. Rickards also stuffed the stat sheet with 16 points, eight rebounds and two assists while Merritt added 13 points, three rebounds, two assists and two steals. Broughton also contributed to the strong offensive evening, ending with 10 points, six boards, six assists and two steals.
For the game, UF shot 33-of-62 (53.2%) from the floor, including three quarters where the team shot above 60%. In the second half alone, the Gators ended 19-of-29 (65.5%) from the field and 4-of-7 (57.1%) from deep.
Tennessee was led by Alexus Dye with 10 points and six rebounds.
Tennessee got the scoring started right away, knocking down a triple on their first possession. The Gators, however, would respond with a 9-0 run to claim a 9-3 lead at the 6:54 mark. The Orange & Blue extended their lead to 15-5 following another 6-0 run, capped off by a pair of free throws from Rickards, with 5:26 on the clock.
A 7-0 response from the Lady Vols closed the gap to three, but once again UF would respond, this time with an 8-2 flurry to push their advantage back to nine following a Broughton triple. The Gators went on to hold a 25-18 advantage at the end of one, forcing seven first quarter turnovers in the process.
Both squads exchanged buckets to start the second frame, but a Rickards and-one would serve as a spark to give the home team their largest lead of the night through the first two periods at 12. With the lead peaking at 34-22 after Smith managed to slice her way through the lane for an easy two, the Lady Vols would battle back to shrink the deficit to seven, 36-29, going into halftime.
Tenacious defense played a key role in the first half success for the Gators, as UF forced No. 7 Tennessee into 13 first half giveaways, translating into nine steals. A defensive team effort, a quartet of Gators recorded two steals each in the first half helping to a 15-0 advantage in fast break points and 19-3 edge in points off of turnovers.
Smith started the third period with four-consecutive points for the Gators, pushing the lead to 40-29 early before both squads would trade buckets through the 5:08 mark of the quarter. Florida would blow the game wide-open following an 8-0 run before using another 6-0 spurt, with a triple from Merritt, to extend the lead to 58-31 with 1:02 on the clock. The UF lead sat at 59-41 with one quarter to play.
Back-to-back buckets from long range by Smith and Merritt to start the final frame helped give Florida breathing room at 65-43 with 8:40 remaining. The Lady Volunteers, however, would not go down without a fight. Offensive flurries of five points, followed by another 5-2 stretch, helped Tennessee pull back within 15 at 73-58 with 5:32 remaining in the game.
That’s as close the opposition would get however, as the Orange & Blue ended the game on an 11-1 run, with six points coming from Smith, while holding Tennessee scoreless for the last 5:10 of the game to win running away, 84-59.
The schedule doesn’t get any easier for the Gators, as they hit the road for Athens, Ga., on Sunday for a matchup with No. 14/11 Georgia at 1 p.m. ET on SEC Network.
Quotables
Head Coach Kelly Rae Finley
On defensive strategy…
“I mean our advantage is our quickness and our speed. I also think our advantage is in our next-play mentality, both within the possession and from offense to defense, defense to offense. I think that we have grown a lot in that and it’s something that we really focus on. But as far as defensive strategy, we knew that’s where our advantage was. Their advantage was their size, like Kiki said. So, if we allowed them to play their offense at the three-point line and post up our guards, it was going to be a long night. So, we bought into that. We understood the assignment and I thought we executed pretty much to perfection.”
On no longer being the underdog…
“Nah we like that, we’ll keep it. We’re good, but we don’t need everybody else to tell us we’re good. That’s not arrogance either, it’s not. It’s a belief that you are enough and listen, everybody is beating everybody in our league, that’s why you come to the SEC to play the best of the best and the way that we prepare any night, we don’t look at the rank. What is that going to help us? If you can tell me how that’s going to help us then we’ll fixate on it, but it’s not. I think that’s made a huge difference for our team.”
On their physical performance…
“I mean we believe that we’re in really good shape. We have an excellent strength coach. She has us prepared. Our trainer is very, very good. They have us healthy and prepared to play at the pace we want to play at and that usually results in a pace that most teams don’t play at, right. Not to be redundant, but we know that if we can speed the game up that can hopefully lead to our advantage down the stretch.”
Graduate Guard Kiara Smith
On their confidence level…
“For me, it’s another game. SEC, the conference is pretty much winnable. Every game is winnable for us, so we just go into each game with the same mindset. Like Coach Kelly said, our defense won this game for us tonight, we did a lot of focus on that, so I think that it definitely boosts our confidence but our confidence, we don’t need wins to boost it.”
On shots falling early…
“We knew. We talked a lot about it. We don’t stop playing our game until the buzzer goes off. So, we knew being an SEC team, it’s not just going to let down and give up. Like they said, we kept our same pace, we wanted a fast pace, and that’s what we did. And like she said we knock down those shots every single day and it definitely helps when you get to see the ball go in and that but it’s not a surprise when it does go in and that, we just get back and play defense.”
Sophomore Forward Jordyn Merritt
On the team pulling together…
“I just think that we are really good at facing adversity and just overcoming it together. At the end of the day, we have each other and we know that we can rely on each other to uphold a commitment and just be dedicated and buy into the program. I just think that that is what has brought us this far for sure.”
On what “we are enough” means to her…
“I think for me, not to sound really arrogant, but we don’t really need validation from anybody. I think that we believe in ourselves, and we just go into every game knowing that you know we are enough, we can compete with anybody in the country.”
Postgame Bites
– Florida’s win over Tennessee was just their fifth in the series and third in Gainesville.
– Thursday was Florida’s largest margin of victory over a top-10 team in program history.
– Not only was Thursday’s win the largest margin of victory over Tennessee, it was the first time ever that the Gators have defeated UT by more than 10 points.
– It was also just the second time in the 59-meetings that Tennessee has scored under 60 points (57 on Feb. 8, 2009).
– Thursday marked the highest-rated SEC victory since Jan. 5, 2014 when Florida defeated No. 6 Kentucky, 83-73.
– It was the highest-rated victory over Tennessee since Feb. 26, 2006 when UF defeated No. 5 Tennessee, 95-93, in Knoxville.
– The 84 points scored by Florida were the most the Lady Vols have given up this season.
– Florida handed Tennessee their worst loss against an unranked opponent since the AP Poll debuted in 1976.