Florida sat on a heavy lead in the final seconds of the game against Bethune-Cookman.
UF senior guard Aliyah Matharu dribbled the ball to stall the shot clock as she debated whether to go for the shot.
She passed it to graduate student Kenza Salgues and she easily threw the ball for the last score of the game — a 3-point jumper — as UF secured a comfortable victory.
The Florida Gators (2-0) defeated the Bethune-Cookman Wildcats (0-2) 83-69 Thursday afternoon in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center.
“I thought we fought, I thought we played very well in spurts,” said UF head coach Kelly Rae Finley. “Obviously there’s always things we can improve on, but overall, I was really pleased with our efforts.”
Florida struggled to find its footing in the opening minutes of the game with an early missed layup and almost immediate turnover to Bethune-Cookman. Wildcat graduate student guard Chanel Wilson opened the scoring after the steal with a mid-range jumper.
UF senior center Ra Shaya Kyle offered the Gators their initial points with a swift layup. But it was Matharu who highlighted the first quarter with eight points on 4-6 shooting.
Bethune-Cookman suffered a personal foul to award Florida senior guard Zipporah Broughton two free throws.
Broughton made both shots to extend UF’s lead to 16-10. Junior forward Alexia Dizeko ended the quarter with a half-court 3-pointer to carry the Gators into the second quarter with a nine-point lead.
Aggressive plays plagued Florida with personal fouls in the second quarter as the team easily lost points on penalties. The Wildcats went 6-8 on free throws, and UF stood 3-5 from the charity stripe in the frame.
UF graduate student guard Kenza Salgues drilled two 3-pointers to widen the Florida lead by 12 points, 36-24. Wildcats guard O’Mariyah Tucker responded with a triple of her own in the final minute of the first half.
Florida entered the second half with a seven-point lead, 36-29.
Senior guard Leilani Correa stripped a Wildcats player and ran the length of the court to claim Florida’s first points of the second half with a layup. Correa followed the play up with a personal foul to sacrifice points on free throws.
Matharu buried her first made three of the game with less than seven minutes left in the quarter followed by junior guard Jeriah Warren’s first layup to keep the Gators well ahead 49-34.
The Gators created a 20-point deficit when Matharu hit another 3-pointer after Correa’s quick layup. A pool of Bethune-Cookman defenders crowded the hoop when freshman guard Laila Reynolds jumped for a layup and secured another two points for the Gators.
Florida headed into the final quarter with a heavy lead, 62-47.
The Wildcats refused to back down in the final quarter as they slimmed their 20-point deficit to single-digits in less than four minutes. Bethune-Cookman ran a 7-0 scoring streak in 1:46 to shrink the UF lead to 66-58, and Finley called a timeout.
“Stay together, stay poised,” Matharu said of the Wildcats’ comeback. “It’s not anything we all haven’t seen as basketball players.”
After the timeout, Correa ran a defensive rebound to the other side of the court and then passed to Kyle for the transition layup. The Gators wrapped up the game with a 3-pointer from Salgues to take the game by double digits
The Florida Gators will take on the Florida A&M Rattlesnakes at 6 p.m. Monday in the O’Dome. The game can be streamed on SEC Network+.
Contact Krisha Sanghavi at ksanghavi@alligator.org. Follow her on Twitter @krishasang.
Krisha Sanghavi is a third-year public relations and economics major. In her free time, she loves cheering on Miami sports teams and spending time with her friends.
