For a second consecutive game, the Florida Gators built a lead heading into the break and built on that lead on the way to a convincing win.
Florida followed up its blowout win over No. 6 Tennessee with another strong showing on the road in Athens, beating Georgia 92-84.
In a game dominated by offensive possessions, Tre Mann led all scorers with a career-high 24 points on 7-of-16 shooting, including two threes. He was also 8-10 from the free-throw line.
The backcourt had a great game. Noah Locke contributed 16 points, four threes, and two steals. Tyree Appleby had four steals to go along with 14 points of his own. The three-guard lineup that White featured heavily this week averaged 44.5 points in the two wins.
"We changed the whole dynamic since I’ve been here. This year, we started playing much faster," Locke said after the game. "The personnel that we got, I feel like that’s the best look for us. I feel like we’ve been playing well with it. I mean, we’ve switched a few things with our offense, but the whole playing fast aspect of it, I feel like we play our best.”
That’s not to forget about the frontcourt. Florida won Tuesday without Colin Castleton but added the big man back into the lineup off the bench on Saturday. Castleton scored 14 points on efficient 7-of-9 shooting, pulled down three rebounds, dished out three assists, and had a block and steal to fill out his scorecard. White also used a big lineup with Castleton and forward Omar Payne on the floor at the same time. Payne scored 10 points with 9 rebounds and two blocks.
"Game-to-game, it’s just going to be different in terms of who we play and how we play. We are definitely more comfortable offensively than, you know, when we first came back from Christmas break, for sure," White said after the game. "We have to value the ball better. If we’re going to be a good team, like not a good team sometimes, but a consistently good team in this league, we’ve got to value it better. You have to make better decisions. Outside of that, offensively I thought we were really good. Missed some reads, missed some post touches where we wanted to go with it… Just weren’t there at times, specifically (in the) second half. Some stuff we can clean up, but you shoot the percentage we shot on the road, you get to the foul line, 16 offensive rebounds… I felt our guys did some really good stuff offensively.”
The Gators
Notes:
Florida has won three straight at Georgia and five of six trips to Athens under Mike White.
Florida’s 92 points marked the team’s most in regulation at Georgia since 1994 when the Gators scored 100.
Florida scored 104 in 2OT in 2011, but only had 73 at the end of regulation.
The Gators took a three-point lead into halftime and used a 16-3 run coming out of the locker room to push the lead to 16.UF held a 22-11 advantage in second-chance points. Florida had 16 offensive rebounds vs. Georgia’s 17 defensive rebounds.
Tre Mann posted a career-high 24 points to go along with six rebounds and four assists.
Noah Locke scored a season-high 16 points, including four 3-pointers.
Omar Payne made his second straight start and delivered a solid performance with 10 points and nine rebounds going a perfect 5-for-5 from the floor.
Up Next:
Florida will host Vanderbilt on Wednesday, January 27. Before taking a trip to Morgantown to play the West Virginia Mountaineers in the SEC/Big 12 Challenge. on Saturday.