Bulldogs end 11-game skid, upset Florida

Athens — Georgia outran history, and Terrance Woodbury was carrying the baton.

With a number of historical marks of infamy breathing down their necks, Woodbury scored a career-high 32 points, and the Bulldogs played easily their best game of the season against their biggest nemesis of all time on the way to an 88-86 victory over Florida.

The win snapped an 11-game overall losing streak — a Georgia team hadn’t lost 12 in a row since 1952 — and an 11-game losing streak to the Gators. It also assures that the Bulldogs (10-15, 1-9 SEC) won’t become the first team since Georgia Tech in 1954 to go winless in SEC play.

“It’s great for these kids,” said interim coach Pete Herrmann, who took over when Dennis Felton was fired on Jan. 29. “They’re going to school and to class every day and being told they’re not amounting to much. Then they came out today and were very aggressive, and that’s the way we wanted to be in the game, really aggressive and physical.”

Woodbury put on a shooting clinic. The 6-foot-7 senior made his first eight shots — including all seven in the first half — was 9-of-13 for the game, made 7-of-10 from 3-point range and went 7-of-7 from the foul line. It was a near-perfect game.

“I was in a zone. I don’t even know why,” said Woodbury, who hadn’t beaten Florida in his career. “I was just, like, ‘they’re going in, cool; we’re winning, cool.’ When I banked that one in [in the first half] I was like, ‘all right, this is my night.’ I just knew I had to keep shooting for us to win.”

Woodbury got some help. Freshman Trey Thompkins had 11 points and nine rebounds and freshman point guard Dustin Ware added 11 points with five assists against just turnover.

While Woodbury did the heavy lifting, the game came down to two baskets made by other Bulldogs. With the score tied at 84 with three minutes to play, Zac Swansey scored a driving layup in heavy traffic off a Ware feed at the 2:56 mark.

After exchanging misses with the Gators, Thompkins gathered in a low-post feed on the right block and executed a strong spin move to make a short jump shot for an 88-84 lead with 59 seconds remaining.

That provided the cushion Georgia needed as the Gators followed a Woodbury missed 3-pointer with back-to-back misses from Erving Walker and Walter Hodge before the final buzzer.

The victory touched off a wild celebration between the players and students behind the home team’s baseline.

“I thank God for the feeling I have today,” Thompkins said. “It’s great to share this with a team that’s been through so much. I think the fans had a weight lifted off their shoulders, too.”

Said Ware: “To be able to get a victory here tonight being in the slump that we were and coming out and beating a really good Florida team on national TV is really going to help our confidence. We’re looking forward to building off this win.

It was a costly loss for the Gators (19-6, 6-4 SEC), who are trying to play their way onto the NCAA tournament bubble. They had beaten Georgia by 26 points on Jan. 28 — the defeat that spurred Felton’s dismissal — and had won the previous nine games over the Bulldogs by double figures.

“When you go on the road in the SEC and give up 57 percent from the field and 54 percent from three you cannot expect to win,” coach Billy Donovan said. “In a lot of ways we were lucky to be in this game.”

Walter Hodge led five Gators in double figures with 22 points and Nick Calathes was a rebound short of his third consecutive triple-double against Georgia with 16 points, 13 assists and nine boards.