Junior forward Jennifer George (Orlando, Fla.) posted her fourth consecutive double-double and guided Florida to a hard-fought 62-49 victory against Duquesne Wednesday evening in the championship game of the 21st annual Gator Holiday Classic held at the O’Connell Center.
George was named the tournament’s Most Valuable Performer after scoring 15 points with 13 rebounds and becoming the first Gator to tally four straight double-doubles since Vanessa Hayden strung together five such performances midway through the 2003-04 season.
Joining George on the All-Tournament Team were teammates Jordan Jones (Suwanee, Ga.), who scored a team-best 18 points in the title game, and sophomore guard Jaterra Bonds (Gainesville, Fla.), who scored a season-high 16 points on 7-of-12 shooting against Duquesne (10-2), which had its program-record eight-game win streak come to an end.
“I’m really proud of the way we played. Duquesne is a good team, a well-coached team and a team that is definitely a contender in the A-10,” said Gator head coach Amanda Butler. “It wasn’t the prettiest of ball games. In a sense that you always look at things and wish you would have done things better, but then you look at a win like this against a team like Duquesne and see that your best basketball is right ahead of you.
“Everyone’s minutes, when they came and how they played them, was a contributing role in the game, and they did well,” Butler said. “We threw them in the fire and they made good decisions. I don’t think the point totals showed how our players off the bench contributed. On the flipside, the starters handled putting the points up for us. This was a team win, regardless of who scored the most or who tallied the most rebounds.”
UF also used lockdown defense to secure the victory, limiting the Dukes, who entered the contest ranked 16th in the nation scoring an average of 77.3 points per game, to a mere 49 points on 32.8 percent from the field. Additionally, the Gators were able to shutout the Dukes from distance, as Duquesne went 0-for-19 from three-point arc.
