GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A forgettable February finally took a positive turn for the Florida Gators.
Coach Mike White’s squad stumbled to the finish during Saturday’s 70-63 win over Georgia, but the Gators held off the Bulldogs for UF’s first win this month.
“Glad we hung on,” White said. “All of them are hard to win; you have to remember that. No lead is safe.”
The Gators (11-6, 7-5 SEC) saw a comfortable double-digit lead that reached as many as 17 points cut to 68-62 with a little more than one minute remaining. The Bulldogs’ trapping defense forced several turnovers leading to easy baskets.
UF was able to get to the free-throw line enough to close out the game. Of the Gators’ final nine points, seven were from the foul line as the team finished 20 of 25 from the stripe.
“Turnovers continue to haunt,” White said. “We got to be tougher with the basketball. We have to make better decisions. But Georgia was disruptive.”
Florida finished the day with 20 turnovers, leading to 17 points for Georgia. The Bulldogs have lost three of their past four games.
But the Gators built enough of a cushion thanks to an ice-cold first-half shooting performance by the Bulldogs (13-9, 6-9).
Georgia was coming off an impressive 80-70 home win against No. 20 Missouri, but at one point Saturday coach Tom Crean’s team missed 10 shots during a scoring drought lasting 8:26.
Florida capitalized to stake a 22-10 lead.
Back-to-back 3-pointers by Noah Locke pushed the Gators’ advantage to 30-12 and gave the junior shooting guard 200 career 3-pointers at UF. Locke drained another 3 at the buzzer to give his team a 37-23 halftime lead.
Georgia cut the lead to 11 points several times until finally whittling it to 57-47 with less than seven minutes to go on a three-point play by Sahvir Wheeler, who finished with a game-high 27 points.
The Gators immediately responded behind center Colin Castleton, who came off the bench following a bout with COVID-19. Castleton first found Anthony Duruji for an alley-oop dunk, and then followed with a three-point play of his own on UF’s next possession.
Castleton finished with a team-high 14 points, including 12 in the second half, on 5-of-5 shooting during a quietly efficient performance.
“He didn’t miss a shot?” sophomore guard Tre Mann said when he heard Castleton’s stats. “Wow, That’s big.”
Backup point guard Ques Glover chipped in 11 points off the bench on 4-of-5 shooting. Starter Tyree Appleby finished with 13 points and shot 7 of 8 from the foul line but also had five turnovers, giving him 12 in the past two games.
“He probably played better than any guard we had, maybe his best game of the year,” White said of Glover.
The Gators certainly were not at their best down the stretch, a familiar pattern of late for White’s team.
Two late-game collapses this month against South Carolina and Arkansas bookended a COVID-19 outbreak among the Gators compelled the school to postpone three games.
The trying three-week stretch left the Gators entering Saturday in search of their first win since an impressive showing Jan. 30 at West Virginia that landed White’s team in the Top 25 for the first time in more than a year.
The Gators hope the Georgia win can get them back on track, but visits to Auburn and Kentucky loom next week.
“That was really big,” Locke said. “We needed that.”
