ATHENS, Ga. (AP) — The Florida Gators are starting to look a lot like that team from a year ago.
You know, the group that won it all.
The No. 14 Gators seem to be peeking at just the right time, posting another dominating victory as they led from start to finish in an 86-66 beatdown of Georgia on Wednesday night.
“We stayed the course,” coach Todd Golden said. “We kept working and practicing, and I think over the last month and half, we been playing some really good basketball.”
When Florida lost four times before Christmas — matching the total from its entire championship campaign — the chances of a repeat seemed remote.
But the Gators have now won nine of 10, and all but one of those victories has been by double-digit margins.
“Our guys have done a great job of being mentally tough all year,” Golden said. “We played a really tough schedule in the non-conference and lost a couple of tight games.”
Indeed, those early losses included setbacks to Arizona, Duke and UConn — which make up half of the top six in the latest Associated Press rankings.
“A lot of people wanted to count us out and say we’re not last year’s team,” Golden said. “We handled that the right way. We were not pointing fingers. We were not blaming each other for the lack of success.”
Outside of a surprising home loss to Auburn, the Gators (18-6, 9-2 Southeastern Conference) have looked downright unbeatable during this current run. The average margin of victory is 19.67 points per game, pushing them to the top of the league standings.
Much of the credit goes to a stifling defense, which limited high-scoring Georgia to 25 of 72 (34.7%) from the field. The Gators also controlled the boards, largely because of 20 rebounds from Rueben Chinyelu.
“As we’ve learned the last couple of weeks from our group, when we guard and rebound, we’re pretty tough to beat,” Golden noted. “Our team is getting to a point where enjoying and kind of owning the identity of being a defensive, gritty, physical, rebounding team.”
Xaivian Lee, who led the latest victory with 18 points, seven assists and no turnovers, said the stout defense is setting up the offense.
“We’re all locked into what the coaches are asking us to do on defense, and offensively I think we’re finding our groove too,” Lee said. “We’re seeing each other better on the court and, obviously, our size and athleticism seems to wear teams down at the end of games.”
Fellow guard Boogie Fland said the Gators are playing “extraordinary” defense.
“We’re adjusting when teams make their runs,” Fland said. “We’re doing everything we need to do to make possessions long and lengthy, making it tough on them. If they make tough 2s, we’ll live with that.”
Florida also showed a more accurate touch from long range against Georgia. The Gators came into the game ranked last in the SEC in 3-point shooting (28.8%), but they managed to hit six of their first 12 attempts beyond the stripe and finished 10 of 26 (38.5%).
“Collectively as a staff and as a program, we think of our 3-point shooting as the cherry on top,” Golden said. “We don’t want that to be what makes us good or what we rely upon to be a good team. We want it to be a thing where if we are shooting ball well, we’re really hard to beat.”
Hard to beat.
That sounds a lot like last year’s team.
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