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Florida 87, Georgia 71

Georgia’s shooting was scintillating — its best of the year.

But so were the Gators — without the turnovers — and Georgia (9-9, 1-4) lost again on the road, 87-71, bringing their road record to 0-6.

Georgia shot a season-high 60 percent from the field and 57 percent from three-point line (8-14) against Florida (15-5, 4-2) Wednesday night, but Georgia couldn’t handle the Florida pressure or the Gator crowd at the

Stephen O’Connell Center. Florida owned a 16-point advantage in points off turnovers, and shot the ball well (53 percent shooting on the game) and attempted 13 more shots on the game than Georgia.

“We didn’t play well enough to win. We turned the ball over too much in the first half, and then finished the half so poorly,” coach Mark Fox said. “We didn’t take care of the ball well enough, and we didn’t rebound the ball well enough and points off turnovers and second-chance points just ate us up tonight.”

Georgia took the lead with a score of 21-20 with nine minutes remaining in the first half but that was the last lead the Dogs would see. Florida capitalized on 12 first-half turnovers to finish with a 25-12 run to take a 12-point advantage to the half.

Florida held the edge from the foul line, too, making nine more at the line. The Florida lead vacillated from eight to as much as 19 in the second half, as Georgia was unable to get key stops in the second half.

“Our field goal percentage was terrific. When we didn’t turn it over we were pretty good at finishing plays,” Fox said. “But you have to defend better on the road to give yourselves a chance to win.”

Florida had no answer defensively for Trey Thompkins in the post, as he was able to score an efficient 24 points on 10-12 shooting with six rebounds. Ricky McPhee also did his part in keeping Georgia in it with a season-high 21 points on 8-11 shooting, including 5-8 from behind the arch.

But three Florida players had equally big nights with Alex Tyus scoring 23 points and the backcourt duo of Erving Walker and Kenny Boynton each chipping in 21 points for the Gators.

“[Tyus] wore us out inside,” Fox said. “And we didn’t stand up to him with any defense at all. You have to credit Florida because that’s a very good basketball team — very well- coached — but I was very disappointed in our defense.”