For close to two hours, UF made the third-largest crowd in women's basketball history forget they had come to view the BCS National Championship in the O'Connell Center following the basketball game.
The 6,500 Gators fans cheered on the women to an 80-66 victory in their Southeastern Conference opener against Mississippi State, extending their school-record winning streak to 15 games.
The first 37 minutes saw seven lead changes, as neither team could pull away from the other. With just under three minutes left, the No. 18 Gators finally claimed the game's first double-digit lead and put the Bulldogs down for good.
It was only right for senior guard Sha Brooks to hit the layup that finished off Mississippi State.
Brooks ended the night 12 of 21 for a career-high 31 points - she is the first to score 30 points for UF since Bernice Mosby dropped 31 on Dec. 22, 2003.
The start of SEC play forced Brooks to elevate her play.
"You got to step it up," Brooks said. "(SEC play) is a whole 'nother level, you just have to bring your 'A' game every night, and that's what I did."
Although the game stayed close throughout, the Gators controlled the pace for most of the second half.
They made a deliberate effort to take care of the ball to reduce the number of turnovers and, consequently, Mississippi State's chances off them. The Gators allowed just 2 points off eight turnovers in the second half compared to 19 points off 12 before the break.
Another halftime adjustment that led to their second-half success was the switch to more zone defense.
"We played a lot more zone in the second half than we did in the first half, and that got them off-balance a little," UF coach Amanda Butler said. "They are such a great attacking team, and (the zone) took some of their weapons away."
The game went as well as Butler could have hoped, except for an injury to junior guard Jennifer Mossor, who went to the floor hard with a right knee injury with 12 minutes remaining and did not return to the game. Butler was unsure how serious the injury is.
