COLUMBIA, S.C. — After picking up two critical victories during their best week of the season, the Gators came out Wednesday and avoided a letdown in a big way.
No. 17 Florida (19-5, 8-2 Southeastern Conference) dominated South Carolina (13-9, 4-5 SEC) from start to finish, never trailing en route to a 79-60 victory in Columbia.
“We’re just going to stay focused,” senior forward Chandler Parsons said. “Ranked or not ranked, we need to come out here with the maturity just to play to the best of our ability.”
Parsons avoided a personal letdown as well, recording his third straight double-double and sixth consecutive game with 10 or more rebounds.
In his first contest since being named National Player of the Week, Parsons nearly logged a triple-double, finishing with 14 points, 12 rebounds and eight assists.
The senior was effective at facilitating the offense and crashed the glass on nearly every rebounding opportunity.
“What he’s doing is incredible,” coach Billy Donovan said. “He’s turned out to be a very, very complete player.”
Although the Gamecocks dominated the interior in their first meeting this season, the Gators attacked the basket aggressively in the rematch.
UF recorded 36 points in the paint and 18 second-chance points while only having two shots blocked against a team that stuffed eight of their attempts when they played on Jan. 15 in Gainesville.
Center Vernon Macklin was particularly effective on the interior, logging 16 points on 7-of-9 shooting.
“We just went to the hole strong,” Macklin said. “We didn’t change anything. We just wanted to go to the rim and keep being aggressive.”
Another player who never shied away from the interior was junior guard Erving Walker, who complemented his three floaters in the paint with 4-of-5 outside shooting on the way to a game-high 25 points.
“I felt like Erving was going to come in and play well, just because I feel like (South Carolina guard Bruce) Ellington played such a great game at our place and (Walker) is a competitive guy,” Donovan said. “Not that I thought he was going to get 25 points, but I knew he was going to be ready to play.”
The game was a sloppy affair for both sides, as the teams combined for 34 turnovers.
This often created a frenetic pace with a number of fast breaks in either direction.
Florida capitalized on this up-and-down style, scoring 15 fast-break points in the game.
“That always makes it easy if they’re going to turn the ball over and give us easy points,” Walker said. “We prefer to get out and run and get easy transition points than work in the half court.”
As a team, the Gators shot 55.4 percent for the game, their best mark yet in SEC play.
Of the six players who scored for UF, five shot 50 percent or better.
The only blemish for UF was its 16 turnovers, the most since opening conference play.
“We were being a little careless with the ball in the first half,” Parsons said. “We knew they were going to run and jump and trap us and play hectic defense, so we just need to take care of the ball against pressure like that.”
With the win, Florida avenged its earlier 72-69 loss against South Carolina.
The Gators have now beaten every team in the SEC East and own a two-and-a-half-game lead in the division.
“They got us earlier this year in our place, so we definitely wanted to come in here and get one,” senior Chandler Parsons said. “Any time you win on the road in the SEC, it’s big time, and our guys really stepped up tonight.”
