Georgia beat Florida for one half.
That was about the only positive the Bulldogs could take out of Wednesday night's matchup against the No. 8-ranked Gators. Georgia was blown out 40-20 in the second half, which meant it lost the game 64-47.
And while that's decidedly better than when they lost to Florida by 33 two weeks ago in Gainesville, it still dropped the Bulldogs to 7-11 overall and 1-4 in SEC play. They play on the road at Texas A&M on Saturday.
With their seventh win in a row, the Gators (15-2, 5-0) have now beaten UGA in men's basketball for the 17 times in the last 20 meetings. Clearly the SEC's best team, the Gators' conference victories have come by an average margin of 24.8 points.
"It was almost a tale of two halves," Georgia coach Mark Fox said. "As well as we started the first half, we didn't start the second half well at all. We just couldn't stablize our defense in the second half. We couldn't find a way to get stops and they shot the ball very well. You have to give them credit for that."
Florida never led in the first half and trailed for a goodly portion of it. But what turned it around for the Gators was 3-point shooting. After making just 1-of-9 from behind the arc in the opening half, they made 7-of-11 in the second. Guard Scottie Wilbekin led the Gators with 17 points (tying his career high), Kenny Boynton added 14 and Erik Murphy had 13. Their points came on a combined 7-for-14 shooting performance from long range.
Guard Kentavious Caldwell-Pope led the Bulldogs as usual, this time with 16 points. He has led Georgia in scoring in 16 of its 18 games. Freshmen Charles Mann and Brandon Morris had nine and eight, respectively.
Florida trailed by as many as nine in the opening half. Caldwell-Pope gave the Bulldogs a 27-24 halftime lead with a 26-foot shot at the buzzer.
"We were feeling pretty good with the way we started the first half," said Caldwell-Pope, who also led Georgia with 7 rebounds. "We were where we wanted to be. We wanted to start off strong and come out and throw the first punch and we did."
But Georgia opened the second half with three consecutive turnovers and a missed desperation heave at the end of a shot clock. In contrast, the Gators made back-to-back 3s — the second by Mike Rosario to give them their first lead of the contest, 30-27 — then kept building on it from there. Ten minutes into the half, Florida had a 14-point lead, which represented a 21-4 run over that span.
And that was essentially it. Georgia found itself on the short end of a 7-1 foul differential, continued to struggle with turnovers and couldn’t stop Florida’s balanced offensive attack. The Bulldogs ended up with 17 turnovers to the Gators' 7.
"I think they played harder than us in the first half," said Florida's Boynton. "We also made a few mistakes. They shot 50 percent from the field and from the 3-point line in the first half, so that was definitely a point of concern. Coach wanted us to come out in the second half and, no matter what we had going offensively, just get it back together on defense."
Georgia got off to a wonderful start. A quick 8-2 lead forced an early timeout call by Florida coach Billy Donovan at the 16:36 mark. The Gators came out of it by missing a 3-point shot, and Nemanja Djurisic answered by making one for the Bulldogs on the other end. Just like that UGA had a surprising 11-2 lead just four minutes into the contest.
That would represent Georgia’s biggest lead of the game, but it quickly dissipated. After the 15:27 media timeout, the Gators turned to full-court pressure. And as they had in the last game against LSU, the Bulldogs had trouble with it.
Back-to-back Georgia turnovers were followed by two missed shots from Djurisic. In between, the Gators converted three layups to get to within one point. It took a while, but Florida finally tied the score at 21-all at the 4:00 mark on a layup by Boynton.
As it turned out, the Gators could never wrest away the lead in the half. They would tie the score again at 24-24 inside of two minutes remaining. But a late foul allowed Georgia to secure the last possession, and Caldwell-Pope made his long 3 at the buzzer.
"We just let the game slip away," said Georgia forward Donte Williams, who was held to 2 points after getting 14 this past Saturday against LSU. "Fouls, turnovers, a couple of 3-points shots. We can't make mistakes like that against a team like Florida. They're too good."
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