It was the Georgia Bulldogs who came out with a bang and an early double digit lead but the Florida Gators never let things get out of hand and stayed in touch until the second half when they ultimately took a lead and never relented, winning 88-82 and improving to 18-7 (8-4 SEC) on the season. As has been the case a lot recently the Gators were led by Walter Clayton with 21 points and 2 assists, while Georgia got a big game from Niagara transfer Noah Thomasson who had 26. With the Bulldogs coming off a bye week to prepare for this game it was never going to be easy for Florida and while things didn’t go exactly as planned, they’ll be ecstatic with the victory.
Consistent Effort
A key for the Gators entering this game was a consistent 40 minutes because if there is one thing you can bet on from Georgia–it’s runs. This was the Bulldogs’ sixth straight loss so you might assume they’re just getting hammered in every game but that isn’t the case. They have had double-digit leads at some point in nearly every one of these losses, something that continued against the Gators when they came out hot and made 9 of their first 10 field goal attempts. Unfortunately for the Bulldogs, as has generally been the case–they once again got ice cold in the second half going nearly ten minutes without a field goal. Georgia’s predictable streakiness was matched by a consistent effort from the Gators who never got hot enough to match the Bulldogs shot for shot when they were on fire, but never got cold so when Georgia started to cool off the Gators steadily fought back into the game. It would have been easy for the Gators to have their effort cool off on the road in front of a loud crowd when the Bulldogs built up an early lead but they didn’t–they kept up the energy particularly on the offensive glass and clawed their way back into the game. Because the Gators aren’t super reliant on the three-point shot they are generally quite a consistent team and that really helps when you go against a squad like Georgia.
Career Night
In the first half Florida struggled to get much going offensively until they went to the bench and put in freshman Thomas Haugh. Haugh hit three pure three-point shots right away and calmed things down for the Gators and he continued his excellent play in the second half defensively and on the glass finishing with a career-high 17 points and 7 rebounds. Coach Todd Golden wasn’t particularly happy with the play of starting frontcourt players Micah Handlogten and Tyrese Samuel who were getting exposed on the defensive end and Haugh managed himself much better particularly with perimeter defense, and the shotmaking on the other end secured his role in this game. Haugh was out there for nearly all of the last ten minutes of a close game and there isn’t a bigger compliment from a coach than to be trusted in crunch time of a close game on the road. Joining him in crunch time was Alex Condon who also had a tremendous game off the bench with 10 points and much better interior defense than the Gators were getting from their starters. Closing out the game with two freshman in the frontcourt instead of two heralded transfers was not something you’d expect to see this deep in conference play and while there could be some concern about the play of Tyrese Samuel and Micah Handlogten, the positive side of things is that Thomas Haugh and Alex Condon were tremendous.
Special Teams
One area of improvement the Gators will be looking at in practice is their baseline out of bounds defense. Georgia head coach Mike White is known for his ability to draw up baseline out of bounds plays and they embarrassed Florida in this situations with a number of wide open layups and catch and shoot threes and it was one way the Bulldogs were able to get easy points in a game where their half court offense wasn’t exactly humming. This hasn’t been a major area of strength for Florida this season but it hasn’t been exploited all that much until this game, but this could be what leads to the Gators spending some more time on these special situations. Looking back on these plays there were a number of Florida players who made errors with execution and communication, so there is plenty to be worked on when the team looks back on the film.
Final Thoughts
This could have been a trap game with Georgia coming off a bye week to prepare and it was looking like the Gators could be in trouble when the Bulldogs came out hot. Fortunately, Florida never gave up and continued to grind away with offensive rebounding and lean on their shotmaking guards and ultimately the Georgia drought that predictably came was enough for the Gators to get back in the game. There were some pretty poor moments defensively for Florida, particularly against a Georgia team that has dismal offensive numbers this year, but ultimately the Gators have found a way to win as they continue to do in games where they are favored. This was a quad-2 game without a ton of resume value, but it’s also a game where a loss would have been quite detrimental and those are the losses the Gators have avoided all season and avoided once again. Things will get much more challenging Wednesday when the Gators take on Alabama.