Stegeman Coliseum
Athens, Ga.
Records: Florida 8-4 (5-3 SEC), Georgia (9-5, 2-5 SEC)
Box Score (PDF)<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__floridagators.com_documents_2021_1_23_2021-5F01-5F23-5FUF-5Fat-5FUGA.pdf&d=DwIFAg&c=sJ6xIWYx-zLMB3EPkvcnVg&r=o5LKAX7slotfFMyE71jI7L22NYBIi1-KbRGNSXudTPo&m=137hw8q2fk8KR0US1r4h5mum_wL9O7C5Fckh9wi4HGo&s=jvABZIPY-D2VCntwDYojYHvhhu_KITFVpfdB95CUiEc&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=137hw8q2fk8KR0US1r4h5mum_wL9O7C5Fckh9wi4HGo&s=lJ3HPIRYG2lwFwN-_EW7QXxcgjRF3JYUpmz-rbHA7FU&e= >
Notable & Quotable
* Florida has won three straight at Georgia and five of six trips to Athens under Mike White.
* Florida’s 92 points marked the team’s most in regulation at Georgia since 1994, when the Gators scored 100.
* Florida scored 104 in 2OT in 2011, but only had 73 at the end of regulation.
* The Gators took a three-point lead into halftime and used a 16-3 run coming out of the locker room to push the lead to 16.
* UF held a 22-11 advantage in second-chance points. Florida had 16 offensive rebounds vs. Georgia’s 17 defensive rebounds.
* Tre Mann posted a career-high 24 points to go along with six rebounds and four assists.
* Noah Locke scored a season-high 16 points, including four 3-pointers.
* Omar Payne made his second straight start and delivered a solid performance with 10 points an nine rebounds going a perfect 5-for-5 from the floor.
Tre Mann
On playing as a leader…
“Yeah, I feel like that’s kind of my role – to make plays. The ball was in my hands at that time, so I knew I had to make plays, so that’s what I tried to do.”
On Omar Payne…
“He’s been playing huge for us. We need him. We need that from everybody on our roster. Everybody on our roster is good at something and once they do what they’re good at every time, then we’ll be the best team that we can be. It’s definitely a lot of help.”
On beating a rival on the road…
“It feels great. Any win in the SEC feels great, but to beat a rival, it just shows that we came in ready to play and we prepared great for it.”
On turning the corner…
“Yeah, we just try to take it day-by-day. Try to get better every day. I feel like we got a little bit better in some areas today. Some stuff that we can improve on and we’re just going to go into the next day trying to get better.”
Noah Locke
On their up-tempo identity…
“You can consider that ours. We changed the whole dynamic since I’ve been here. This year, we started playing much faster. The personnel that we got, I feel like that’s the best look for us. I feel like we’ve been playing well with it. I mean, we’ve switched a few things with our offense, but the whole playing fast aspect of it, I feel like we play our best.”
On rebounding…
“We talk about that all the time. Coach Pinkins is always talking about having a motor. I mean, we have an offense now where the bigs are down in the paint a lot more so it’s gets better chances of getting the offensive rebounds. That’s always been an emphasis. Coach Pink has been telling us a whole lot about offensive rebounds, just rebounding in general. Yeah, that definitely has been interesting.”
On Omar Payne…
“It’s about opportunity and, I think I said it last time, it’s just a mentality thing. Just knowing in his head that he can do it and him coming out and telling himself and being confident within himself. It definitely carries over and it’s been working for him for the last two games.”
Head Coach Mike White
On their up-tempo identity…
“All of these opponents are so different. Game-to-game, it’s just going to be different in terms of who we play and how we play. We are definitely more comfortable offensively than, you know, when we first came back from Christmas break, for sure. We have to value the ball better. If we’re going to be a good team, like not a good team sometimes, but a consistently good team in this league, we’ve got to value it better. You have to make better decisions. Outside of that, offensively I thought we were really good. Missed some reads, missed some post touches where we wanted to go with it… Just weren’t there at times, specifically (in the) second half. Some stuff we can clean up, but you shoot the percentage we shot on the road, you get to the foul line, 16 offensive rebounds… I felt our guys did some really good stuff offensively.”
On Omar Payne…
“Yeah, you know what… Omar will be the first one to tell you the reality – he’s been given an opportunity. And sometimes you earn it and sometimes you get guys out. Sometimes guys roll an ankle. Sometimes a guy gets the cold. You always have to be ready, you have to continue to develop. And when opportunity comes, you take advantage. You handle it with maturity. We talked about it all year, Omar is a starter with the way we’re playing. We haven’t gone extra-big, if you will. Maybe we will, at some point. I don’t know. To me, it’s the epitome of character. He knows who he is, he’s continued to work, he’s got a good attitude. And while he’s not getting everything that he wanted out of it individually, you celebrate wins, you love your teammates and you get better. Opportunity calls, you take advantage of it.”
