For a decent stretch in Tallahassee on Tuesday night, it looked like whoever had picked the Gators to beat FSU by 9.5 points was going to be way off. The Seminoles, in a lot of ways, asked the questions that Iowa asked last March that Florida couldn’t answer.
But to Florida’s credit, they stayed steady, didn’t get sucked into FSU’s AAU antics, played lockdown defense, and eventually hit enough big shots to pull away to win 81-72 and move to 3-0 on the season.
Florida wins its 6th in a row over FSU
The word on the street before Tuesday was that FSU was an improved team, and not to be fooled by the fact that they were unranked. The first half proved that true: even though Florida held them to just 29 points, the Gators couldn’t get into the lane and create anything down low.
Florida was forced to live beyond the arc in the first half, and 18 of their 31 first-half points came from three-pointers. To give an idea of the uphill sledding Florida faced, they were just 5-11 on two-point shots in the first half…