The Florida Gators women’s basketball (11-12, 2-8 SEC) team has yet to win a conference game at home since the new Exatech Arena opened. Florida fell to the Ole Miss Rebels (15-8, 4-6 SEC) 84-75 on Monday night.
Florida’s Ronni Williams led the Gators with 21 points. Three other Gators also scored in the double figures as Haley Lorenzen, Delicia Washington, and Dyandria Anderson had 14, 13, and 14 points respectively. Madinah Muhammad led the Rebels with 22 points. The Gators started off the first quarter leading 20-19 and were neck and neck with the Rebels early but a second-quarter Ole Miss 12-0 run put the Gators behind.
Florida fought back to trail only 42-39 at halftime and early in the third quarter the Gators briefly took a one-point lead. Going into the fourth the Rebels led 60-58. After the Gators tied the game at 60, Ole Miss went on a 13-4 run and maintained their lead throughout the rest of the contest. This marked the first road win for Ole Miss in SEC play in two years as well.
final from tonight
Next game – Thursday at home!#GoGators pic.twitter.com/IDN7ZMCqWn
— Gators WBasketball (@GatorsWBK) February 7, 2017
Ole Miss outshot Florida 45.6 percent to 41.5 percent in the game but Gator coach Amanda Butler said Florida did not do several things right including “very poor defense on our end, which is very disappointing, and we did not defend dribble penetration.”
“We did a lot of things poorly, and that’s on me,” she added.
Next for the Gators
Up next, Florida will prepare for another home game against the Arkansas Razorbacks on Thursday.