Florida basketball snaps losing skid with win over George Washington
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Florida basketball shook off back-to-back losses against big-time teams and got back to doing what it normally does on Saturday afternoon — win and win impressively.
The defending national champions got a season-high 24 points from Xaivian Lee and 19 points from Thomas Haugh to cruise past Georgia Washington, 80-70, in the 2nd game of the Orange Bowl Basketball Classic in Sunrise, Fla.
The neutral court was kind to 18th-ranked Florida, which improved to 6-4 and finally got back in the win column after disappointing losses on high-profile stages against ranked teams Duke and UConn.
The loss to Duke on Dec. 2 was a road game at hostile Cameron Indoor Stadium and the setback against UConn a week later was on a neutral court at Madison Square Garden in the Jimmy V Classic. Playing its 2nd game in a row on a neutral floor but being back in its home state with Saturday’s game in South Florida, the Gators went to work behind Lee, who went 4 for 8 from 3-point territory in leading the charge for UF.
Haugh added 7 rebounds while Boogie Fland chipped in 12 points and 5 assists for Florida, which only led 30-27 at halftime but got going immediately to start the 2nd half to take command. The Gators scored the first 11 points after halftime and didn’t look back, with Rueben Chinyelu’s dunk finishing off the run that gave UF a 41-27 cushion.
Florida’s lead swelled to 20 points with 12:30 left in the game on Micah Handlogten’s layup.
George Washington (8-4) didn’t go away completely, responding with a 9-0 run to trim the Gators’ lead to 11. But UF then had its own response, scoring the next 7 points to make things comfortable again.
Florida will finally return home to Gainesville on Wednesday night, when it hosts Saint Francis (6:30 p.m. ET, SEC Network).
Cory Nightingale, a former sportswriter and sports editor at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, is a South Florida-based freelance writer who covers Alabama for SaturdayDownSouth.com.
