Florida guard Delicia Washington had been there before.
Fans of the Florida women’s basketball team could dream for the first three quarters on Sunday.
The Gators walked into the Thompson-Boling Arena in Knoxville, Tennessee, without one of the most important elements in the game of basketball: height. The team was down its starting 6-foot-1 forward, Kristina Moore, after she injured her arm Sunday against Arkansas, and her absence was evident from the first whistle to the last.
The Gators tried to get one last shot off before the buzzer sounded. They had an excellent opening quarter on Sunday against Arkansas and were up by 12.
It was the pace.
If you told Florida women’s basketball coach Cam Newbauer that the Gators out-rebounded No. 7 Mississippi State and held its leading scorer, Teaira McCowan, to just two points, he probably wouldn’t have expected his team to get blown out.
Ole Miss guard Mimi Reid drilled a three on the first possession of Sunday’s game in Oxford, Mississippi.
It has been a frustrating season for the Florida women’s basketball team, but one signal that greener pastures could be on the horizon can be found at the bottom of the stat sheet after every game: bench points.
A hesitation move and a dash to her right allowed her to blow by the defender. She reached the rim and leaped as three Missouri Tigers jumped along with her to try and swat the ball away. She double-clutched and banked the shot off the glass and in with 2.2 seconds left to give Florida its first lead since 8:14 in the first quarter.
The South Carolina Gamecocks led from tip-off to the final whistle at the Colonial Life Arena in Columbia, South Carolina, on Thursday night. They handed the Florida women’s basketball team its third-straight SEC loss and seventh-consecutive road defeat, winning 71-40.
Sunday’s 64-56 loss at the hands of Auburn raises an interesting question about the Florida Gators women’s basketball team: Who can the team turn to when its two leading scorers, Funda Nakkasoglu and Delicia Washington, aren’t at the top of their games?
The Florida women’s basketball team needed big performances from its two leading-scorers in Funda Nakkasoglu and Delicia Washington to win on Sunday. They didn’t deliver.
The Gators had finally gotten back in the game. They had blown their early 20-point lead but now had the game tied again with momentum on their side.
Guard Funda Nakkasoglu found her deep shot at the right time. She rose up without hesitation and made back-to-back threes, the ball slicing through the net and giving the Gators the lead late in the third quarter.
Florida guard Danielle Rainey’s game-tying three-point attempt at the buzzer came up short as UNLV defeated the Florida women’s basketball team 56-53 for its second loss in as many nights.
Coach Cam Newbauer stressed that defense would be key before the Florida women’s basketball team’s game against Utah. Going against the 25th-best scoring offense in the nation is no simple task, and his young team had its hands full.
The return of leading scorer Funda Nakkasoglu wasn’t enough for the Florida women’s basketball team to earn its fourth-consecutive victory.
Forward Zada Williams scored a career-high 16 points at the O’Connell Center to lead the Gators women’s basketball team to their third straight win, a 62-38 thrashing of Florida A&M.
Bethune-Cookman guard Angel Golden drove to the basket in the second quarter looking to end Florida’s 5-0 run. She, instead, met a sea of orange as all five UF defenders converged on her in the paint, disrupting her shot and sending her to the floor in a heap.
Just five current players were on the roster the last time the Florida women’s basketball team won two games in a row.
Solutions by The State News
