Gators Women’s Basketball Drops SEC Road Game Against Alabama

The Gator women’s basketball team dropped an SEC road game against Alabama 69-62 on Thursday night.  The Gators are now 14-12 and 5-8 in conference play.

This game was kept close for the majority of time, featuring 14 changes in the lead and 10 ties. It was close late, as the game was tied at 58 with 3:54 remaining in the game. After that, Alabama went on a 8-0 run while the Gators suffered a three-minute scoring drought.

All the highlights from our game at Alabama 🐊🏀⬇️ pic.twitter.com/lIOgiYNaq8

— Gators Women’s Basketball (@GatorsWBK) February 21, 2020

Notable Players 

For the 22nd time this season, freshman guard Lavender Briggs finished the game in the double figures, scoring 21 points for Florida. She now has reached the double digits in 22 out of her 25 collegiate games. This is also the third time this season she has reached 20 point mark, the second time in the last three games.

Joining her in the double digits was red shirt junior guard Kiki Smith who reached 11 points. She also had five assists and two rebounds.

Right behind her was sophomore guard Ariel Johnson who got eight points, three rebounds and two steals.

Leading the Crimson Tide was red shirt junior guard Jordan Lewis who had 16 points, eight rebounds and six assists. Also scoring double digits was junior forward Jasmine Walker with 13 points and nine rebounds.

Free Throw and Fouling Struggles 

Despite being able to keep the game close, the Gators were struggling in both sides of the ball.

Offensively, Florida had the opportunity to extend their leads multiple times at the free-throw line. The Gators were able to shoot for an extra point 21 times, but only made eight from the stripe.

Briggs, who helped her team win against Ole Miss with her free-throws, shot seven times from the line and was only able to get two. Smith also struggled at the free-throw line as she shot six times and only made two.

Defensively, the Gators were on thin ice fouling-wise as two players had three fouls, two had four, and one had to sit the rest of the game after she reached five.

Both Zada Williams and Kristina Moore had to be careful in the second half as they were playing with four fouls.  Freshman forward Faith Dut had to exit the game early in the second half after getting five fouls with only 10 minutes played.

Florida head coach Cam Newbauer says that these little mistakes need to be fixed if they want to win SEC road games.

“There were too many empty possessions, missed layups and free throws. We had to come out as the aggressor and we didn’t do it, but Alabama did exactly that so we have to give them credit because they played well and they played aggressively for the entire game.”

Up Next

The Gators will return home on Sunday to host the No.22 Arkansas Razorbacks. Tip off for this SEC match up is set for 4 pm.