ATHENS,
Ga. -- For openers (literally), Florida trailed by two points before Saturday’s
game even started.
That’s
because Gators backup swingman Casey Prather dunked a basketball during
pre-game warm-ups and was assessed an administrative technical foul the UF
coaching staff did not particularly agree with. Gerald Robinson made both free
throws, then the Gators and Bulldogs lined up for the opening tip.
For the
visitors, it was all downhill from there.
Kentavious
Caldwell-Pope paced five Georgia players into double-figures with 18 points and
the Bulldogs belied their poor statistical numbers on the offensive end with a
sharp-shooting 76-62 upset of the listless and stone-cold Gators before a
scattered crowd of 10,265 at Stegeman Coliseum.
The
Bulldogs (13-15, 4-10) came into the game next-to-last in the Southeastern
Conference standings and but last in the league in scoring (61 points per game)
as well as field-goal percentage (39.2). So while the Gators (22-7, 10-4), one
of the SEC’s better shooting team, made just 36.7 percent for the game --
including a woeful 5-for-23 from 3-point range (21.7 percent) -- the Dawgs hit
53.8 percent from the floor, rained in more threes than the visitors (7) and
posted their third-highest point total of the season.
“Our
defense was just terrible,” UF freshman swingman Bradley Beal said.
It was
on par with the team’s energy level, according to head coach Billy Donovan, who
once again found himself lecturing his players -- as he did at halftime of
Tuesday’s home game against Auburn, which the Gators rallied to win -- about
playing with the kind purpose and enthusiasm of past UF champions, such as,
say, Al Horford, who with his arm in a sling, happened to have a front-row seat
Saturday for this eyesore.
“I’m
really concerned if we’ll ever play with passion again,” Donovan said. “I’m
being totally honest.”
Though
still alone in second place in the SEC standings, the Gators have not clinched
a bye in the first round of the league’s postseason tournament, with their next
two outings against third-place Vanderbilt (20-8) Tuesday night and next
weekend against No. 1-ranked Kentucky (28-1) in the regular-season finale at
the O’Connell Center.
