Following a statement win over then-No. 6 Florida State, the Gators showed no signs of a hangover against a clearly overmatched Kennesaw State team.
UF (2-1) defeated the visiting Owls (1-3) 84-57 on Saturday for its second straight win.
Florida came and did what was expected of it from the start, consistently growing its lead each quarter from five to 14 to 24 and, ultimately, to 27 at the end of the game.
Coming off its inspiring win against FSU on Monday night, UF knew it needed to be wary of a letdown. Coach Amanda Butler said that she recognized that and brought it up with her team briefly, but basically left it up to her team’s veteran leadership.
“I have a lot of trust in our upperclassmen and in particular our seniors,” she said.
“When you have a big senior class, I think those are messages that are gonna be handled best in the locker room, and so we did talk about it a little bit as a group but I really trusted those guys to make sure that our focus was gonna be squarely where it needed to be.”
And it was.
But while the team’s senior leadership may have had a lot to do with the way UF came out in the game, that particular unit didn’t have as much to do with the win as the rest of the team, starting with junior forward Ronni Williams.
With two double-doubles in as many games, Williams’ play has been exciting to watch so far this season.
Against Kennesaw State, she put up a team-high 14 points and ten rebounds to go with a steal. After the game, she credited the team rather than focusing on her own performance.
“Me and my team, we have to make a statement this year. And we’re gonna play the way we know how to play,” she said.
“My double-double comes from my teammates — they put me in the positions, in the right places for me to be successful.”
Williams wasn’t the only Gator who found success in this game.
In fact, redshirt freshman guard Isis Young was the only Gator who didn’t put at least one point on the board.
Freshman guard Eleanna Christinaki had two steals, nine points and three rebounds in a very well-rounded performance. The freshman is having no problem adjusting to the collegiate level so far, as she also logged the most minutes of any Gator with 26.
While the Gators scored nearly 60 points in the paint, there was a large lack of three-pointers, as they didn’t even attempt one in the first half and went 1-for-11 behind the arc in the second.
“We didn’t not want to take threes,” Butler said.
“It just worked out that in the first half we didn’t have an attempt and I thought all of our attempts in the second half were really good shots as well. And that’s all we want to do is make sure that we’re taking good shots.”
While she may not have been missing threes, Williams became visibly frustrated with herself in the second half after missing a few layups.
“My teammates did a good job staying on me and telling me ‘hey, you gotta move on and stay focused,” she said. “We still got eight minutes left of another quarter left.”
The Gators will take that attitude into their next game when they face Savannah State on Tuesday night.
Follow Ethan Bauer on Twitter @ebaueri
Ronni Williams goes up for a layup during Florida's win against Longwood on Nov. 17.
