Senior Dalila Eshe tallied her third career double-double, helping Florida open Southeastern Conference action with a 59-44 victory over Alabama Thursday evening at the O'Connell Center.
The Crimson Tide (6-8, 0-1 SEC) scored the first bucket of the second half to extend their lead to 11 points, 30-19, but the Gators (13-1, 1-0 SEC) regrouped quickly to outscore the Tide 40-14 the rest of the way and notch their 11th straight win and tie the program record for the best 14-game record with the 2001 squad. Alabama lost its 19th consecutive SEC road game.
“You are always happy to take the 'W' any way you can get it,” Florida head coach Carolyn Peck said. “The one thing that I like about this team is that they do a good job of fighting back. The one thing that I don't like about this team is that they find themselves in a position to where they have to fight back. In the second half, we were able to pick up our momentum and did a better job of finding our open shots.”
Senior Brittany Davis started UF's comeback with a short jumper in the paint and Sha Brooks followed with two three-pointers to bring the Gators within one with just under 16 minutes remaining. Alabama responded with a layup by Leah Drury and UF countered again, closing to within one point twice more before junior Kim Dye canned back-to-back three-pointers with 10:03 remaining to give the Gators a 41-36 advantage after trailing for the previous 24:54 of play.
Florida never lost the lead again, shooting 51.7 percent in the second half and holding Alabama to a 25 percent clip during the final 20 minutes and 29.8 percent for the game.
Davis led the Gators with 16 points, while Eshe tallied 11 points with a career-high 14 rebounds and Brooks contributed 11 of her 14 points in the second half.
“Brittany and Dalila have to set the tone,” Peck said. “We look to them as examples and our tone-setters. We know that we have people who can score outside of those two, but they are the ones who have to lead us through the rest of our schedule.”
Marverly Nettles led the Tide with 12 points, and Kate Mastin finished with 11 – all coming in the game's opening 20 minutes. The 44 points scored by the Tide was a season-low for a Gator opponent this season as they failed to score in the final 3:51 of the game.
The Gators got off to a rough start, connecting on 9-of-30 of their first half shots for a 30 percent success rate from the field. This included a dismal 1-of-10 performance from three-point land. Alabama's Kate Mastin scored 11 points, helping the Tide close the first half on a 10-2 run and take a 28-19 halftime lead.
Thursday's game capped a program-record eight-game homestand for Florida, as the Gators next play their first road game in 36 days, traveling to Athens, Ga., to play 18th-ranked Georgia on Sunday beginning at 2:30 p.m. That game will be televised by Sun Sports.
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