University of North Florida
FLORIDA
Ospreys fall to #1 Gators
11/14/2006 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
Nov. 14, 2006
GAINESVILLE, Fla. - The University of North Florida Athletics program made the move to Division I two seasons ago so that it could compete against the nation's best in every sport.
The UNF men's basketball team took that experience to an entirely new level on Tuesday night when it played against the defending national champion and currently top-ranked Florida Gators at the O'Connell Center. The Ospreys learned a tough lesson in an 86-40 loss - that the Gators pack a powerful punch.
Florida's inside tandem of Al Horford and Joakim Noah dominated the paint and powered the Gators to a big lead early before retiring to the bench for the majority of the second half. Horford scored a team-high 17 points and collected 11 rebounds, while Noah had 15 points and 10 rebounds, to lead Gators to their 13th consecutive victory.
The Gators (2-0) shot 54 percent for the game and forced 26 UNF turnovers.
The undersized Ospreys (0-3) countered with a game-high 21 points from senior Rashad Williams and outrebounded the Gators in the first half - 19-17 - but they couldn't match that effort over the final 20 minutes, falling victim to Florida's pressure and hot shooting in losing their first ever meeting against a Southeastern Conference team.
UNF shot 31 percent for the game and only managed to get three shots from 3-point range all night against the Gators' stingy defense.
"Our kids fought hard," UNF head coach Matt Kilcullen said. "We got a pretty good taste of why those guys are No. 1. We outrebounded them in the first half and played pretty good defense in stretches. In the second half, they turned up the pressure a notch and put the game out of reach. You have to give Florida credit. They played hard and never let up. They come at you with such tremendous intensity."
Florida came out blazing, racing out to a 9-2 lead out of the gates. UNF's Chris Timberlake nailed a 3- pointer to cut the Ospreys' deficit to 10-5 at the 15:34 mark in the first half. The Gators answered with a 14-0 run from there to move ahead 24-5 over the next three minutes. UNF outscored them 15-14 from there to trail 38-20 at halftime.
In the second half, UF scored the first seven points to move ahead 45-20. Horford and Noah took over from there. Once they left, freshman Marreese Speights came in to add eight points off the bench in 10 minutes.
"Those guys were beasts inside," UNF senior Rashad Williams said. "They were so big and physical, especially Horford. I knew he would be after watching him on film. He lived up to the hype. Those guys are really, really good."
James Grimball added seven points off the bench for UNF, while Gallo Cham had nine rebounds.
UNF has four days to recover from its first meeting with a Division I ranked opponent. The Ospreys open their home season on Sunday against Concordia College at UNF Arena. Tipoff is set for 1 p.m. The game will be aired locally on WIOJ-AM 1010 and via the World Wide Web at www.UNFOspreys.com.
