Florida’s defense was the culprit as much as anything as the Gators (12-7, 3-4 SEC) gave up 48 points after the game was tied at the half to drop a road match against Ole Miss (10-9, 2-5 SEC) on Monday night.
Florida was playing its third straight game without Colin Castleton and also was without CJ Felder, who had a non-COVID illness.
But this was about a team that was desperate for a win against a team that looked like it was not the same one that played its way back to .500 in the league play and off the NCAA Tournament bubble.
Ole Miss was without one of its starters Jarkel Joiner, but guards Matthew Murrell and Daeshun Ruffin combined for 41 points.
Florida gave up the first eight points in the second half before coming back to tie the game at 32. Not much went right after that for UF.
By the 10:42 mark, Ole Miss led by 10 and Florida never got closer than seven points the rest of the way.
Particularly disheartening was a lob dunk when Ole Miss inbounded the ball with one second left on the shot clock.
“You yell switch, you gotta switch,” Mike White said. “We continue to struggle with adversity. It’s not the sign of a great team obviously.”
From there, the Rebels just kept increasing their lead.
The Gators were tied at the half at 22 despite going 7:43 without making a field goal and missing several point-blank layups.
The game was made up on a rare Monday night SEC contest because of a postponement back in December.
The Gators will play Ole Miss again later in the season.