Opening the second half of Thursday night’s matchup in Jacksonville, the Gators held a firm 20-point lead over North Florida.
Less than a minute in, however, the lead was 14.
UF coach Mike White called a timeout and angrily sent his starting five to the bench in favor of a backcourt led by junior Chris Chiozza and freshman Eric Hester.
And Florida never looked back.
In its first true road game of the season, the No. 24 Gators (7-1) defeated the Ospreys (3-6) 91-60 in Florida’s best offensive performance of the season.
Chiozza scored a season-high 16 points on 5-of-8 shooting — including 3-of-5 from beyond the arc — to lead UF, while Justin Leon and Canyon Barry scored 13 and 12 points, respectively.
“Chiozza was the best player on the floor all around,” White said. “(He) was extremely unselfish. Got guys shots and made shots, of course.”
Defensively, Florida was sound.
The Ospreys shot just 37.7 percent from the field and totaled two assists. The quick hands of the Gators’ backcourt, led by guards Kasey Hill and KeVaughn Allen, forced North Florida into 20 turnovers. Hill, Allen and Chiozza combined for all eight of the Gators’ steals.
However, despite an otherwise solid defensive outing, White was not happy with how his team defended UNF’s premier guard Dallas Moore. The senior netted six threes and torched the Gators’ defense for 31 points on 12-of-21 shooting. Moore’s scoring also sparked the Ospreys’ 8-0 run to begin the second half.
“What a performance he put on. He was absolutely incredible,” White said of Moore. “We did a poor job on him. … The scouting report was to make him a driver, and we didn’t.”
However, while Moore seemingly couldn’t miss, neither could Florida.
After a slow start to the season, the Gators finally found a spark on offense.
Florida broke the 90-point mark for the first time this season, shot a season-high 58.5 percent from the field and knocked down nine of its 19 three-point attempts.
The scoring outburst came at the right time for UF.
The Gators head to Madison Square Garden in New York City to face No. 5 Duke on Tuesday. But White said he wants his team to focus on the present, not the future.
“You do what you can to preach staying in the moment,” he said. “We’ll have to be as tight with that attention and that focus and that energy level as we can possibly be to have a chance next week.”
A radio broadcast contributed to this report.
Contact Ray Boone at rboone@alligator.org and follow him on Twitter @rboone1994.
Chris Chiozza dribbles the ball during Florida's 88-79 loss to Kentucky on March 1, 2016, in the O'Connell Center.
