This just in: Florida is capable of losing an SEC game.
The Georgia Bulldogs provided emphatic proof of that with a 73-61 win over the Gators Saturday afternoon before a sell-out crowd of 10,523 at Stegeman Coliseum.
It was the first loss for defending SEC champion Florida (10-7, 3-1 SEC) in its last 25 conference games. The Gators last tasted defeat in the league when they fell to Ole Miss in the SEC Tournament championship game in March of 2013. Florida hadn’t dropped a regular-season game since losing to Kentucky earlier that same year.
It was Georgia’s first victory over the Gators since 2012 and just the fourth in the last 22 meetings against the SEC rival. The Bulldogs improve to 11-5 overall and even their SEC record to 2-2. They play host to Ole Miss on Tuesday.
“This is no statement,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said afterward. “This wasn’t about Florida’s streak. We didn’t talk about it. We talked about what we needed to do to win.”
What Georgia did was shoot 65 percent from the field in the second half to come away with the victory. That was big as the Gators had gotten to within two points, 36-34, early in the second half after trailing by as many as 15 in the first.
But the Bulldogs settled down against the Florida press, which had caused them problems toward the end of the first half. Then they settled into their offense. Georgia had four players in double figures, led by 16 points apiece from Marcus Thornton and Kenny Gaines. J.J Frazier added 11 and Charles Mann 10 as Georgia shot 56 percent for the game.
“We talked about being poised; we talked about believing in ourselves and playing together and getting ready to fight,” Thornton said of the Bulldogs’ halftime adjustments. “Basicially the same things we talked about before the game.
We were able to withstand their little run there and get the victory.”
Dorian Finney-Smith and Devin Robinson had 11 each and Michael Frazier added 10 for the Gators, who had a pretty good offensive day themselves. They shot 50 percent for the game (24-48) but struggled to get to the foul line and then made just 8-of-14 when they did. Georgia made 19 of its 29 free throws.
Florida was playing on a two-day turnaround after defeating Auburn 75-55 in Gainesville Thursday night and had to bus to Athens because its charter service that uses 737 jets is unable to land at Athens’ Ben Epps Airport.
“I thought it was a poor performance overall,” Florida coach Billy Donovan said. “I don’t want to take anything away from Georgia at all; they layed a very, very good game. In a lot of ways, I was actually surprised it was as close as it was. The scoreboard said 12 points and I feel like they out-played us in every facet.”
The Gators, who had trailed since the opening tip, resumed their dogged pursuit in the second half by getting a 3 from Robinson right out of the gate. That got Florida within two 14 seconds into the second half, its closest of the game to that point.
But Georgia finally settled down against the Gators’ press and started to get its offense going again. Yante Maten — playing his first game since getting hit by a car last Sunday — blocked a shot attempt by Florida’s Frazier and J.J. Frazier canned a fall-away 3-pointer at the other end to give the Bulldogs a 54-41 lead with 11:51 to play.
Georgia stretched that out to 15 — matching its biggest lead of the first half — on Cameron Forte’s driving lay-in at the 11:07 mark. That’s where the game stood heading into the game’s final 10 minutes.
The Bulldogs were able to keep their lead at double-digits for the next five minutes when Fox called a 30-second timeout to talk it over. Georgia wasn’t exactly poised after that, but made the plays it needed to hold off the Gators’ charge.
The Bulldogs missed free throws again down the stretch — Nemi Djurisic missed two with Georgia ahead by 10 at the 4:43 mark — but Cameron Forte rebounded the second and was able to extend the possession. Then, after turning the ball over once and nearly doing it again on the next possession, Thornton converted a contested lay-up to give the Bulldogs a 65-53 lead with 2:36 to go.
That gave Georgia the cushion it needed the rest of the way.
The Bulldogs started about as well as they possibly could have. Georgia made its first three 3-points shots, blocked two shots and forced two Florida turnovers to lead 12-0 before the Gators got their first points at the 15:04 mark. The Bulldogs stretched that to 19-4 on a Houston Kessler 3-point with 13:48 still to go in the first half.
“Yeah, that was a pretty electric start,” said Thornton, a fifth-year senior. “That was as good a start as we’ve had as far back as I can remember. That was a great start, especially with the crowd we had.”
Said Fox: “Our crowd was a factor in the game. That made a different Why did we get off to a great start? It was the atmosphere. This was a hard place for a team to come play today, and I can’t thank our fans enough.”
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