The Gators were battered bloodied Thursday night in Starkville, Miss., but coach Billy Donovan and company escaped with their 12th straight win despite an ugly first half, defeating Mississippi State 62-51.
No. 3 Florida (18-2, 7-0 Southeastern Conference) came out of the gates sluggish against Mississippi State (13-7, 3-4 SEC) by starting the game shooting 10 of 27 from the field, including just 3 of 12 from behind the three-point arc.
At the end of 20 minutes, the Gators, who crushed the Bulldogs in the Humphrey Coliseum by 35 points last year, only held a slim 27-26 lead after allowing MSU to end the half on an 8-0 run.
“I thought offensively we just struggled moving the ball, catching the ball (and) passing the ball,” Donovan said. “We bobbled a lot of plays, we didn’t finish plays around the basket. There was no flow for us offensively.”
To add to Florida’s offensive woes, when the Gators penetrated and forced the Bulldogs to foul, they struggled to earn free points at the charity stripe. Florida sunk 8 of its 19 attempts from the line, which was the lowest percentage from the team all season.
Fortunately for Florida, Mississippi State also had its worst night of the season from the free throw line by shooting just 1 of 6.
“For tonight, the big key, I thought, was the free throw battle,” Donovan said. “We definitely took more free throws. The problem was we shot 42 percent from the free-throw line.”
However, the second half brought a second chance for the Gators to redeem themselves on offense.
Michael Frazier II started the contest by missing his first six three-point attempts, including three wide-open shots to end the first half.
But with just more than 10 minutes remaining in the second half, the sophomore guard connected from three to put Florida ahead 47-34, which was its biggest lead of the night.
Frazier hit his next two to finish the game 3 of 9 for nine points.
In a defensive struggle on Thursday, the Gators only had two players, Casey Prather and Patric Young, score more than Frazier and have double-digit scoring performances. For the first time since defeating Fresno State 66-49 on Dec. 21, Florida had only two players score 10 or more points in a game.
Prather and Young each were held to two field goals and nine combined points in the first half, but the seniors broke loose after the break to give the Gators their first back-to-back victories in Starkville in more than 10 years.
Prather shot 5 of 6 to end the game and finished with a game-high 16 points along with seven rebounds.
“You’ve got to be strong with the basketball,” Prather said. “We’re on the road so we might not get as many shots as we want to. So we had to be strong with the basketball going to the rim.”
Young, who was 2-of-4 shooting for four points and had two rebounds in the first half, also found his rhythm after the break. The senior center finished the night second on the squad with 12 points and eight boards.
“We had no post presence to close out the half,” Donovan said. “We didn’t handle the end of the half very well. And then (Young) made a couple plays and he really got into the flow of the game when we found him. He did some good things.”
A radio broadcast contributed to this report.
Follow Jonathan Czupryn on Twitter @jczupryn
Patric Young (4) looks for an opening while Mississippi State’s Colin Borchert defends during UF’s 62-51 win in Starkville, Miss., Thursday.
