BATON ROUGE, La. – The University of Florida women's basketball team fell 69-51 on the road to LSU Thursday night at the Maravich Center.
 
Redshirt senior-guard Funda Nakkasoglu finished with a team-best 11, scoring in double figures for the 20^th time this season, but it wasn't enough as the Tigers improved to 11-5 at home this season.
 
Florida faced just a 31-28 deficit at the half, but the Tigers pulled away by outscoring the Gators 38-23 in the final 20 minutes.
 
Eight different Gators scored in the game and a pair of freshmen, Emanuely de Oliveira and Ariel Johnson, combined to score 18.
 
Florida finished with five three-pointers on the game running its total for the season to 200. The 2018-19 team became just the fourth team in program history to knock down 200 or more three-pointers in a season. 
 
Going up against the league's most formidable defense on the road, the Gators were held to their third-fewest points this season.
 
Johnson and de Oliveira each finished with nine points while Danielle Rainey chipped in with eight off the Gator bench. Florida held a 19-7 edge in bench production as it outscored its opponent for the 15^th time in the category.
 
A Johnson triple from the right wing got the Gators back to within singles digits at 55-47 early in the fourth quarter, but the Tigers closed on a 14-4 scoring run to deny UF's bid for a road victory.
 
 
LSU led 10-8 at the under five media timeout as the Gators knocked down three of their first four shot attempts but struggled with turnovers, committing six in the game's first five minutes. After an extended scoring drought and an 8-0 LSU run, Florida converted on back to back and 1 opportunities to slash the lead to 16-14. The score stood at 16-16 after the first quarter was in the books. The Gators finished the frame with an 8-2 scoring run of their own, scoring on three-straight trips to grab the momentum late. Florida shot 67 percent in the opening frame, and after just two points scored against South Carolina last time out, de Oliveira added six in the game's first quarter.
 
Florida endured a 1-of-9 shooting stretch from the floor but hung tough with the Tigers in the second quarter thanks to a gritty effort on defense. LSU carried a narrow 31-28 edge into the intermission as it put together a 47 percent shooting mark in the first half compared to UF's 39 percent.
 
The freshman de Oliveira paced Florida with nine first half points as she buried a pair of three-pointers from a nearly identical spot on the left wing. UF started 3-of-6 from three-point range and finished the half with a 4-of-13 mark from distance.
 
UF made three of its first five shots to open the second half, including two baskets from Nakkasoglu. A Nakkasoglu runner trimmed the Tiger lead to 37-34 but LSU utilized a 9-0 run to grab its first double-digit lead of the game at 46-34 late in the third. A layup from Rainey snapped the Tiger run with 3:03 remaining in the stanza.
 
The Tigers led 51-40 heading into the final quarter as they pulled ahead by outscoring UF, 20-12 in the third.
 
LSU padded its lead by outscoring Florida 18-11 in the fourth.
 
LSU featured a trio of double-figure scorers paced by Faustine Aifuwa, who finished with 20 points and 12 rebounds.
 
Up Next
Monday, Feb. 25 | 7 p.m. ET
Florida (6-20, 2-11) vs. Texas A&M (19-6, 8-4)
Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center | Gainesville, Fla.
 
Notables

• Florida finished with five three-pointers on the game running its total for the season to 200. The 2018-19 team became just the fourth team in program history to knock down 200 or more three-pointers in a season. 
• Funda Nakkasoglu scored in double figures for the 20^th time this season.
• Florida's bench outscored its opponents for the 15^th time this season.
• Freshmen combined to score 18 points for Florida.
• Emanuely de Oliveira scored nine first half points and knocked down a three for the sixth time in her last seven games.
• Ariel Johnson added nine points, including seven in the second half.

Quotables
Head Coach Cam Newbauer
Overall thoughts on the game…
"We knew we had to play aggressively against a really tough defense team like LSU. We stressed that going in, but we didn't maintain our focus for 40 minutes. At times we competed hard on both ends, but there were too many lapses. The turnovers hurt us and LSU's offensive rebounding caused some major problems for us. It wasn't the performance we expected and needed tonight, but I look forward to getting back home and getting better.

On the team's struggles with turnovers…
"We were going too fast and were careless at times. It wasn't fun for us tonight here. I am going to credit LSU for everything tonight, they smacked us and we just didn't respond. We needed to play with a lot of heart and a lot of grit and we just didn't do that tonight."

On takeaways from tonight…
 "LSU did a great job of defending Funda (Nakkasoglu) tonight, but I was proud of how she kept fighting through it and finding ways to impact the game for us. The same can be said for our two freshmen tonight. Manu (de Oliveira) and Ariel (Johnson), who both came out and competed in a tough road game. We know it's always going to be a challenge playing on the road in this league. There are so many aspects of this game tonight that we can learn and grow from and I look forward to seeing this group get better because of it."
 
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