Florida 74, Auburn 57
Auburn Arena
Auburn, Ala.
Records: Florida 12-6 (8-5 SEC), Auburn 11-13 (5-10 SEC)
Box Score (PDF)<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__floridagators.com_documents_2021_2_23_2021-5F02-5F23-5FUF-5Fat-5FAU.pdf&d=DwIFAg&c=sJ6xIWYx-zLMB3EPkvcnVg&r=o5LKAX7slotfFMyE71jI7L22NYBIi1-KbRGNSXudTPo&m=QP0DhQUCt3wIzWAVyAxKusuPbPlabZWYZ5zEMFmwZfM&s=28p1g0scuo2h_cOjop3p9cw68s6U53g9bcn3bO2Alb8&e= >
2020-21 Season Stats<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__floridagators.com_documents_2020_12_2_2020-5F21-5FUFstats.pdf&d=DwIFAg&c=sJ6xIWYx-zLMB3EPkvcnVg&r=o5LKAX7slotfFMyE71jI7L22NYBIi1-KbRGNSXudTPo&m=QP0DhQUCt3wIzWAVyAxKusuPbPlabZWYZ5zEMFmwZfM&s=WRBaYys9jkgWr-c5U-2EaztSti66y5kuE0drnHW_dQw&e= >
Notable & Quotable
* Florida improves to 5-2 vs. Auburn under Mike White, including 2-1 on the road. Four of those five wins have come by 17 points or more.
* Margin of victory in previous UF wins vs. Auburn under White:
* +32, 95-63, 1/23/16, Home
* +19, 114-95, 2/14/17, Away
* +6, 72-66, 2/24/18, Home
* +22, 69-47, 1/18/20, Home
* Florida’s defense has limited Auburn to 52 points per game in the last two meetings.
* The win marked White’s 120th at Florida, moving into 3rd all-time in Florida history by passing Sam McAllister (119, 1937-42, 1946-51), trailing only Billy Donovan (467, 1996-2015) and Norm Sloan (232, 1960-66, 1980-89).
* Tre Mann notched his first career double-double, totaling 19 points and 13 rebounds.
* Mann started on fire with 14 points in the first 11:30 of the game.
* His 13 rebounds also marked a career high (10 at Vanderbilt, 12/30/20) and the most by a Gator since Kerry Blackshear’s 16 in last season’s win vs. Auburn.
* He is the fourth different Gator to earn a double-double this season (Colin Castleton, Keyontae Johnson, Scottie Lewis).
* After Auburn opened scoring, the Gators then went on an 18-3 run over the next 10 minutes. The Gators didn’t surrender a two-point field goal until more than 11 minutes into the game (two 3-pointers, no free throws during that stretch).
* Florida forced 21 Auburn turnovers, UF’s most vs. an SEC opponent since 22 vs. South Carolina (1/5/19). That included eight turnovers forced in the first 10 minutes.
Head Coach Mike White
On the team’s play tonight…
“I thought we did some good things. Press attack late was more sharp than it was early second half, we got a little rattled there, credit Auburn. Defensively I thought we were pretty good. Some areas for improvement, of course, continue to be there- foul discipline. I thought they missed a few for us. Defending the three, we walked at a couple three point shooters at times. A lot of times we had the right amount of urgency and at times we didn’t. I’d like to take a couple of those turnovers back, of course. Coming on the road and winning at a place like this in this league, you’ll take it.”
On Tre Mann…
“I was pleased that Tre continued to be aggressive. He’s such an unselfish kid, to a fault. I’ve said it for two years, and I’ll continue to say it to him. The numbers he had at halftime, I was concerned that he’d come out floating a little bit. ‘Hey, let me get my teammates shots.’ There’s something to be said for that, for him to want teammates to have success and all that type of stuff and want to have ball movement, but when he’s open we want him to shoot it.”
On Scottie Lewis…
“Scottie Lewis, I thought had arguably his best game of the year. I don’t have all the box scores in front of me, but he was really good. I thought his energy was fantastic, five steals, got some tips, was pretty sound defensively, you know, made some improvements, played with some maturity, made some shots. I thought he was really good.”
Tre Mann
On his reaction to the Sharife Cooper news…
“(Coach White) didn’t really say that he wasn’t playing until warmups. We went in and were like, ‘Well, he’s not starting.’ We didn’t see him in warmups so nobody really paid attention to it that much. When Coach (White) came in and put the starters on the board, he was just like, ‘Cooper, they switched (Jamal) Johnson and Cooper.’ So, we were just like, alright maybe he’s not starting and then when we saw him when we came out with his boot on then we obviously knew he wasn’t playing. We just stayed with the same approach that we were going to have if he did play.”
On coming out aggressive…
“Yeah, for sure. I knew it was a must-win so I came out aggressive. My teammates kept finding me, they gave me the ball. Had some great seals by Osayi (Osifo). (That’s) something we were working on all week in practice – holding seals better to get us guards a lot of open layups. Yeah, I came out more aggressive for sure.”
On Scottie Lewis…
“It started last week in practice. I could just tell he was more locked in, more engaged and everything. He was trying to be a better teammate, a better person. I could just tell from then that he was locked in. Before the game, he didn’t really talk much. Usually we talk, but I let him stay in the zone and he came out aggressive just like I did. It was big, we definitely needed that. Huge for Scottie, huge for the team.”
