After winning 10 straight games by double digits, No. 7 Florida passed a much different sort of test in its most recent outing.
Off the strength of a six-point, neutral-court win over North Carolina, the Gators will host local rival North Florida on Saturday afternoon in Gainesville, Fla.
Florida (11-0) has two more tune-ups left on the nonconference schedule. If the Gators beat North Florida and Stetson, they’ll take a perfect record into their SEC opener Jan. 4 at none other than Kentucky, currently No. 4 in the nation.
On Tuesday in the Jumpman Invitational in Charlotte, N.C., Florida led by as many as 17 points in the first half before the Tar Heels surged ahead with less than eight minutes to go. But Gators coach Todd Golden rightfully was proud of how his team battled to pull out a 90-84 victory.
“To be honest, we haven’t had a game like this yet,” Golden said postgame. “We’ve won every game before this by double figures, and so to be able to push through in a game where we trailed back and forth through the second half, I think is obviously great for us and will help prepare us for SEC play.”
Alijah Martin tied the game at 82 with a 3-pointer and again at 84 with two free throws. Will Richard made a critical offensive rebound and scored the putback to put Florida in front in the final minute, and the Gators’ defense closed it from there.
“We know the rest of the season isn’t going to be easy, but it’s definitely preparing us for conference and the rest of the games we’ve got coming up,” Richard told reporters. “Definitely good to face a little adversity.”
Richard had a team-high 22 points on his best shooting night of the season (8-for-10 from the field). Martin scored 19 points as Florida found a way to win despite leading scorer Walter Clayton Jr. (18.5 ppg) having an off night in which he shot 4-for-15 from the floor.
Florida is 10-0 all-time against North Florida (7-5), the last meeting coming in December 2021, but that doesn’t mean the Ospreys can be slept on.
North Florida upset South Carolina and Georgia Tech on the road in the first week of the season alone. The Ospreys have cooled off since then, losing three of their last five, but their willingness to bomb away from 3-point land makes them a ripe candidate for more upsets.
North Florida takes more 3-point shots (37.3 per game) and makes more (13.6 per game) than any team in Division I.
The Ospreys experienced some regression by shooting just 30 percent from deep Tuesday in a road loss to UNC Asheville. But in their prior game, when they defeated UNC Greensboro 89-77, coach Matthew Driscoll made sure to point out that his team had other ways to win. North Florida made 21 of 38 shots inside the arc that day.
“Everybody’s like, âWell, you live and die (by the 3) and you do this, that and the other.’ Well, it’s not true,” Driscoll said. “… Now, I want to make 3s, I want to take threes and I want these guys to knock them down, the right ones. But to our guys’ credit, we got layup after layup after layup.”
Josh Harris (16.4 points, 7.0 rebounds per game) and Jasai Miles (14.2, 7.7) pace North Florida. The Ospreys’ most dangerous shooter is Liam Murphy, who comes off the bench to average 12.3 ppg. Murphy has made 40 of 90 3-point attempts this season (44.4 percent), leading them in both categories.
