Junior forward Jennifer George has taken 17 shots this season — 16 came against Stetson .
George scored a career-high 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds in the Gators’ 71-57 win against the Hatters (1-1) in the O’Connell Center on Monday night.
“I just worked on posting up more and wanting the ball,” George said. “I was just trying to own the paint, unlike I did in our first game.”
George’s performance comes on the heels of a one-shot, three-rebound effort in Florida’s 69-66 season-opening loss to Michigan on Friday.
When Butler saw George barely made a mark on the stat sheet, she planned on having Florida (1-1) focus on getting the ball into the paint Monday.
“[George] knew Friday’s effort was not her best, and she accepted that,” Butler said. “That’s a hard to thing to do, to say, ‘My bad, y’all. I’m better than that.’”
While George was nearly nonexistent in the Gators’ loss to the Wolverines on Friday, senior guard Deana Allen didn’t play after suffering a concussion in practice Nov. 6.
But Allen returned to the lineup against Stetson and provided a much-needed offensive spark.
She played 19 minutes, scoring 11 points and grabbing eight rebounds. Allen and George were the only Gators to score in double figures.
“I was hyped all over again,” Allen said. “[Monday] was my actual first game of contributing with the rest of my teammates.”
UF fared much better offensively Monday, making 28 of 60 shots for a 46.7 shooting percentage.
However, the struggles from 3-point range continued, as the Gators connected only once in 10 tries.
“The best thing about that stat is the 10 part,” Butler said. “The improvement was recognizing, ‘Here’s what’s not working, so let’s quit doing that.’”
The first half was a tightly contested 20 minutes, as the Gators and Hatters exchanged the lead 10 times and were tied on four different occasions.
However, Stetson’s 30-29 halftime lead would prove to be their last advantage of the night. Florida started the second half on an 8-0 run, pulling ahead 37-30 with 18:06 remaining.
Sophomore forward Kayla Lewis sparked the spurt, scoring six points and registering a steal to help put UF ahead for good.
“When post players run the floor, and they run the floor every single time and get out ahead of the transition defense, it’s really hard to guard,” Butler said. “I was proud of Kayla and the whole team of the way we came out of the locker room for the second half.”
Junior forward Jennifer George scored a career-high 21 points and grabbed nine rebounds Monday in Florida’s 71-57 win against Stetson.
