Gator Women’s Hoops Lose at Home in Overtime Thriller Against Vandy, 76-75

The Florida women’s basketball team (12-14, 4-9 SEC) lost a heartbreaking overtime game at home Thursday night to the Vanderbilt Commodores 76-75. UF was down the entire game and didn’t get its first lead until the overtime period. Despite the outcome, Florida coach Amanda Butler says there is more basketball to be played. “We are going to learn from it. We practice special situations all the time. In practice we don’t always hit the shot and that’s what we talk about why we’ve got to put ourselves in the position to take a good shot. We don’t have room in our lives for losing, we don’t have room in our brains. That’s not the way we’re wired. We’re fighters and fighters don’t dwell on defeat. They are thinking about the next opportunity to land a punch.” Florida got off to a slow start. It allowed Vandy to start the game on a 16-7 run with 12 minutes left. At that point in the game Vandy was shooting 58 percent to Florida’s 30 percent. Vandy was also hot from three in the beginning minutes of the game shooting 5 of-6 from behind the arc. This shooting put the Gators into a 25-13 hole with 8:06 left in the half. Quick shots by Kayla Lewis, Carlie Needles, Haley Lorenzen, and January Miller kept Florida in the game. They went on a 16-4 run to cut the led down to two, 31-29. But the two point lead was short lived. Vandy went on a run to close the first half and went into halftime with a 44-36 lead over Florida. Needles led the Gators with eight points followed by Lewis and Lorenzen with six. Florida came out of the locker room on fire. Despite being down, they slowed the Commodores offense down and forced them to turn the ball over. With 11:56 in the game, Miller scored a layup to tie the game at 55. But a series of missed layups and fouls left the Gators stagnant at 55 for the next five minutes. Vandy stretched the lead back out to five, putting Florida down 65-60 with 3:26 left in the game. A Brooke Copeland three would cut the lead down to two. Florida stayed within two until a Cassie Peoples lay up tied the game once again. A late steal gave Florida the ball right in front their bench, but the Gators could not score and the game went into

overtime tied at 69. Both teams entered overtime in the bonus. A Vandy foul to start off the period resulted in two made free throws by Miller. Then the Gators took their first lead of the game with 1:22 left 75-74. The Commodores answered with a quick layup to regain the lead. Down by one with :10 left in the game, Miller could not convert and the Gators were defeated. “During that time I felt like I just needed to get a score since we were only down by one. I was hoping to maybe get a foul and get to the line. I thought I was going to get fouled; it happens,” said Miller. Next up for Florida is a match up against Texas A&M Sunday in College Station. For audio click the links below: Miller on last shot Butler’s overall thoughts