For the second consecutive year, the Florida Gators women’s basketball team saw its SEC postseason journey end in the quarterfinals. In 2024, it was an unranked Ole Miss squad that sent UF packing. This time around, it was No. 9 LSU.
That’s not to say the Rebels were anything to balk at, but it does serve as a testament to how much tougher the SEC has become in just a year – and in turn, how much more difficult Florida’s road turned out to be.
Last season, UF’s statement tourney win came against Vanderbilt, who was subsequently bounced from the first round of the NCAA Tournament. This year, it was No. 19 Alabama that fell victim to a stunning Florida upset – giving UF its first ranked win since 2022.
Nonetheless, this moment wasn’t enough to keep the Gators afloat against the top 10 Tigers, who came away with a 101-87 victory on Friday night. LSU senior forward Aneesah Morrow led the way with a season-high 36 points in addition to 14 rebounds, marking her 27th double-double of the 2024-25 campaign.
“Aneesah Morrow is a very, very talented basketball player,” UF head coach Kelly Rae Finley said. “A lot of what she did was on the glass, but a lot of what she did was away from the basket tonight, which created a different challenge.”
Ironically enough, while Friday marked UF’s worst defensive performance of the tournament, it also ended up as its best offensive outing of the week. Six Gators reached double-figures in the scoring column, with freshman guard Liv McGill tallying 16 points to lead the way.
UF junior forward Alexia Gassett had one of the more efficient performances of the night for Florida, as she notched 13 points on a 5-of-7 clip from the field. Meanwhile, senior center Ra Shaya Kyle came away with her second double-double of the tournament, racking up 11 points and 11 rebounds.
Senior guard Jeriah Warren provided the Gators a much-needed spark from beyond the arc, as she tacked on 14 points with a 4-of-8 clip from three-point range. Rounding out UF’s double-digit scorers, senior forward Alexia Dizeko and sophomore guard Laila Reynolds scored 10 points apiece, albeit to no avail in the end.
While Florida kept its first two tournament opponents at bay to start those respective games off, the Tigers proved to be a different beast coming right out of the gates. LSU held UF without a field goal in the game’s first three minutes and led by as many as 12 points in just the first quarter.
Rather than let the game get away from them, the Gators quickly pieced together a 9-0 run in just 49 seconds to cut the deficit back down to three points. McGill capped off this burst of offense with a fade-away finish in the paint for an and-one, making it a 17-14 ballgame.
Not to be outdone, the Tigers responded with a 9-2 run to end the period. LSU senior forward Aneesah Morrow led all scorers with 10 points in the quarter, as her squad built its lead back up to 26-16 by the break.
It seemed that whenever Florida had a misstep, LSU immediately found a way to capitalize. The Tigers scored 13 points off of eight UF turnovers in the first period alone, a trend that only became more and more apparent as the night went on.
Florida did come right back out swinging to start the second quarter. Senior guard Jeriah Warren knocked down a three in transition coming out of the break, while freshman wing Me’Arah O’Neal trimmed LSU’s lead down to five points on a put-back finish less than two minutes later.
Nevertheless, just as they had all night, LSU countered with a 7-0 run of its own to go back up by double-digits. Following a tip-in lay-up from Morrow at the 5:51 mark, LSU never trailed by less than 11 for the rest of the night. Morrow, who finished the first half with 16 points, capped off a dominant second quarter for the Tigers with a last-second driving layup to put their lead at 53-34.
The Gators surrendered more points to LSU in the first half than they did in their entire first round matchup against Auburn (50). It didn’t help Florida’s case that the Tigers shot 12 of 18 (66.7%) from the field in the second quarter, including 16 points in the paint alone.
In the third quarter, Morrow picked up right where she left off in the first half. The USA Today SEC Player of the Year scored 14 more points in the period to offset an otherwise productive period for the Gators, who scored a game-high 28 points on 9-of-15 shooting in that span.
The fourth quarter only proved to be more of the same, especially after McGill picked up back-to-back fouls in a six-second span that forced her to sit the rest of the evening. Despite Florida outscoring LSU 53-48 in the second half, the damage from the first 20 minutes of action had already been done.
With its stint in this year’s SEC Tournament now officially in the books, Florida will now have to wait eight days to see if it earned a spot in the 2025 Women’s Basketball Invitation Tournament. The Gators were bounced by St. John’s in the first round of last year’s WBIT.
Finley asserted that while Florida’s fate may remain uncertain in the coming days, she believes her squad still has plenty of gas left in the tank following their run in Greenville, South Carolina, over the prior three days.
“My hope is that we get invited to the WBIT,” Finley said. “I don’t know if it’ll happen – that’s the reality of the sport. That’s the reality of playing in the SEC. But if we get the opportunity to, that’s one that we would take gladly.”
Contact Jack Meyer at jmeyer@alligator.org. Follow him on X @jackmeyerUF.
Jack Meyer is a fourth-year journalism major and the Sports Editor for The Alligator. In his free time, he enjoys reviewing music, spending time with friends, playing video games and going to the gym.
