Xaivian Lee, Boogie Fland lead Florida to 20-point road win at Georgia
By Andrew Olson
Published:
Florida has one of college basketball’s standout frontcourts, but on Wednesday night, the backcourt led the way to give the Gators a 20-point road win over rival Georgia. Xaivian Lee and Boogie Fland were the top scorers for No. 14 Florida in an 86-66 win over UGA in Athens.
Lee and Fland shot 14-of-27 from the field from the field on a night the Gators shot 50.8% as a team (32-of-63). Lee was the game’s high scorer with 18 points. The Ivy League transfer was 3-of-9 from beyond the arc as the Gators went 10-of-26 overall from 3-point range. Lee had an impressive 7 assists.
Though it was a big night for the guards, Florida’s bigs still had an impact. Rueben Chinyelu did not meet the scoring half of a double-double (7 points), but had an incredible 20 rebounds in the game. Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh scored in double figures with 12 and 11 points, respectively.
Georgia was led by Blue Cain, who had a double-double of 17 points and 11 rebounds. The Bulldogs never held a lead in the game but fought hard throughout despite shooting just 35% from the field. Every time Mike White’s team made things interesting, though, UF seemingly had an answer. UGA had it down to 72-62 with 4:09 to go, but Florida quickly scored 9 points to put it out of reach at 81-62 with 2:07 left in the game.
White is now 1-8 against Florida, the team he coached from 2015-22. With the loss, Georgia falls to 17-7 overall and 5-6 in SEC play. The Dawgs will look to bounce back at Oklahoma on Saturday.
Todd Golden‘s Gators improve to 18-6 overall and hold on to first place in the SEC at 9-2 in conference contests. Kentucky, which is 8-3 in league play, will look to grab a piece of first place when the Gators and Wildcats face off on Saturday afternoon in Gainesville.
Andrew writes about sports to fund his love of live music and collection of concert posters. He strongly endorses the Hall of Fame campaigns of Fred Taylor and Andruw Jones.
