Florida returns to action on Sunday, January 16, when the team travels to play Georgia at Stegeman Coliseum beginning at 2 p.m.
The game will be televised live by the Southeastern Conference Network, as has a total of 15 states and 48 stations have been cleared to air the battle between the two league rivals that will be called by Cara Capuano and Abby Waner.
Sunday’s trip to Athens, Ga., to play the Lady Bulldogs marks the end of a four-game stretch where Florida has played three on the road. Florida is 1-5 when playing on an opponent’s home turf this season. The Gators had dropped their first five on the road before winning the 65-63 thriller at South Carolina on Jan. 9.
Florida suffered an 83-40 loss to No. 5/6 Tennessee on Thursday in the O’Connell Center. The Gators hit just 21.4 percent (15-70) of their shots, the third worst shooting mark in program history. UF also was outrebounded (57-37) for only the third time this season.
Georgia jumped out early and staved off a second-half Arkansas rally and earned an impressive 58-56 road win.
Just two weeks into the Southeastern Conference schedule and Tennessee (16-2, 4-0 SEC) and Georgia (13-3, 3-0 SEC) are the only two league teams yet to lose a league game. Florida is 2-2 in league action this year, 12-6 overall.
Georgia holds a commanding 44-12 lead in the 56-game series against Florida, including a 23-4 record in games played in Athens. Florida has not defeated Georgia in Athens since an 83-73 victory on Jan. 18, 2004. Since that Gator win, the Lady Dawgs have won six consecutive in Stegeman Coliseum.
Last year, the teams split the two regular-season games, each winning on its home court with Georgia taking the 61-52 decision on Jan. 10 in Athens, before Florida earned the 64-57 win on Feb. 21 in Gainesville.
After playing nine consecutive games decided by double-figures (eight in favor of the Dawgs), the last three in the series have been single-digit affairs.
Three current Gators are natives of the Peach State. Jordan Jones, who was a two-year member of the Collins Hill HS team that compiled a 62-1 overall record and won a pair of Georgia Class 5A state championships, is a native of Suwanee, a mere 39 minutes from Athens. Ebonie Crawford, the lone senior on UF’s 2010-11 squad, hails from Decatur, Ga., located approximately 54 miles from Athens. Freshman Kayla Lewis also is a native of Decatur and helped Southwest DeKalb HS win the Class 4A state championship and was honored as the 2010 Georgia Gatorade Player of the Year and was named 2010 Miss Georgia Basketball by the Atlanta Tipoff Club.
Jones leads the Gator scoring effort, recording 9.8 points per game, hitting a team-leading 35 three-pointers and playing 32.2 minutes per outing.
Azania Stewart (Wood Green, England) is Florida’s leading rebounder with 6.4 per game and is tops with a 51.6 percent field goal mark (Stewart led the SEC in field goal percentage last year, 61.9%). Her 26 blocked shots are one behind leader Jennifer George’s (Orlando, Fla.) 27 swats. Lanita Bartley (Jacksonville, Fla.) is dishing 3.3 assists and 2.0 steals, while finding her way to the free throw a team-best 65 times.
Florida is averaging a respectable 65.6 points per game and no Gators are recording a double-figure scoring average. Nine different Gators contribute at least 5.1 points per game, with 10 of the 12 reptiles averaging at least 13 minutes of playing time per contest.
Four games into the SEC season, redshirt junior Ndidi Madu (Antioch, Tenn.) has stepped up her game, averaging a team-best 9.3 points per game and hitting 63.0 percent of her shot attempts. Madu scored a career-high 17 points in the two-point win at South Carolina last Sunday.
Freshman Jaterra Bonds (Gainesville, Fla.) is averaging 8.8 points in SEC action, while junior Deana Allen (Houma, La.) is adding 7.8 points and seeing 25.5 minutes of action during league play.
Game Day Information
Florida Gators (12-6, 2-2 SEC) at the Georgia Lady Bulldogs (13-3, 3-0 SEC)
Sunday, January 16, 2011 - 2 pm ET
Stegeman Coliseum (10,523) - Athens, Ga.
