GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Kentavious Caldwell-Pope looked like a prizefighter after Tuesday night’s game. He walked out of Florida’s O’Connell Center with cotton shoved up one nostril, a slight limp in one leg and clutching a sore elbow.
Georgia’s star freshman served as a human metaphor for the Bulldogs. They were mauled by Florida 70-48 before 10,506 on Tuesday night
“Yeah, they played real physical,” said Caldwell-Pope, who was limited to eight points, or 6.6 below his team-leading average. “We had to play physical back, and we didn’t do that tonight. We’ve got to step our defense up and do it in this next game.”
It was the second consecutive SEC loss for Georgia (9-7, 0-2 SEC), which heads back on the road Saturday against Vanderbilt (11-4, 1-0) in Nashville.
Freshman forward Nemi Djurisic was the lone bright spot for the Bulldogs as the only double-figure scorer, with 14 points. Caldwell-Pope was 3-of-13 from the floor. Georgia did manage to win the rebounding battle 34-33.
Florida got 17 points each from guards Bradley Beal and Kenny Boynton. Patric Young added eight points and 10 rebounds as the Gators shot 50 percent from the field.
The 19th-ranked Gators (13-4, 1-1) have now won 15 in a row at home and improve to 9-0 on their court this season, and the win continued a period of domination for Florida in this series. The Gators improved to 23-7 against Georgia under coach Billy Donovan and 13-2 on their home court.
“We missed a lot of easy baskets early, which helped dig a hole,” Georgia coach Mark Fox said. “You have to give credit to Florida — that’s a very good basketball team — but we had some chances early, and we didn’t complete them.
The most remarkable part about Tuesday’s contest is Georgia, which trailed by 25 early in the second half, was actually in it with seven minutes to play. Dustin Ware’s long 3-pointer at the seven-minute mark pulled the Bulldogs to within 13 at 56-43 and forced a Florida timeout a few seconds later.
Georgia had a chance to cut the deficit to 12 when Djurisic went to the line for a possible three-point play at the 4:46 mark. But he missed the free throw, Gerald Robinson was whistled for palming after a Florida 3-pointer, then Robinson fouled Scottie Wilbekin on a 3-point try on the other end. At the end of it all the Bulldogs were staring up again at a 19-point deficit with less than four minutes to play.
“It slipped away from us real quick,” said Robinson, who had eight points, six rebounds and five assists. “They had a lot of big runs on us. We just could never get it down to single digits.”
Georgia could have made a better go at it simply by making more of its foul shots and played with more poise early on. The Bulldogs were 1-of-9 from the free-throw line and shot only 35 percent from inside the arc, including several point-blank misses.
Georgia trailed 35-21 at halftime and was fortunate to be down only 14. The Bulldogs fell behind by 20 in the first half, but put together an 8-2 run the last three minutes before intermission.
“We didn’t make free throws,” Fox said. “If you make your free throws, you can put yourself in position where you’re down single digits and can make some plays. We just didn’t make any easy plays. And we need to recognize that\ we cannot give up a high percentage shots like we have the last couple of times and win basketball games.”
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