Kiara Smith’s 23 points helped give Florida their first victory of the season on Tuesday.
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Veteran point guard Kiara Smith dropped 23 points on Tuesday evening to help Florida women’s basketball to a season-opening victory over Sun Belt-foe, Georgia State, 84-70.
Smith was one of four Gators (1-0, 0-0 SEC) to finish in double-digit scoring as LaVender Briggs (16), Jordyn Merritt (15) and Nina Rickards (11) all contributed at least 10 points. For the game, Florida finished a steady 29-of-58 (50%) from the floor.
controlled the rebounding battle for the second time in as many games, outrebounding GSU 44-29. Briggs led the way with seven rebounds while Smith and Merritt each added six of their own. Offensively on the interior, Florida ended with a 42-34 advantage in points in the paint.
The Panthers (0-1, 0-0 Sun Belt) pushed the Blue and Orange early, jumping out to a 6-3 lead and holding the Gators to just 1-of-8 shooting from behind the arc, eventually leading the home squad, 14-12, at the end of one.
After the Georgia State lead was extended to 16-13 early in the second frame, the Gators locked-in to take control of the game. A 17-2 run, spurred by seven points from Briggs and six from Merritt, opened the game up at 30-18. Defensively, UF forced seven second quarter turnovers in addition to six steals of their own, while recording just three turnovers themselves. For the game, Florida tallied 12 steals while forcing 20 turnovers.
Georgia State would not go away in the second half, answering every Florida run that was thrown at them. After trailing 62-47 at the end of the third, the opposition started the fourth on a 5-0 run to pull within 10 points. Smith put an end to the run, slicing through the lane for a contested layup, ensuring that was the closest the Panthers would get. Smith’s layup would spark a 12-2 run, pushing the Gator lead to 20 with 5:09 remaining before holding on for an 84-70 victory.
A key to the second half success came from the bench contribution for the Gators. Recording just three points in the first half, the Florida bench ended the game with 25 points, led by nine from Faith Dut who was an efficient 4-of-6 from the floor.
Florida will be back in action on Friday, Nov. 12, when they head to Raleigh, N.C., for the Preseason WNIT to take on Towson at 4:30 p.m. ET.
Postgame Bites
– The UF-GSU series is now tied at five with Florida winning the previous three matchups.
– The Gators are 8-2 in their last 10 season-openers, including three-consecutive season-opening victories.
– Smith’s 23 points mark her best season-opening offensive debut and second-straight season-opener with at least 20.
– Smith’s and Briggs’ 39 points is the most by a Florida duo in a season-opener since Jennifer George and Jordan Jones combined for 38 on Nov. 11, 2009 against Stetson – a game in which Florida won 85-63.
– Briggs now holds 802 points, just 198 away from being the 27th-member of the 1000-point club.
– Smith owns 1,092 career points, just six away from moving into 23rd all-time in school history.
Quoteables
Head Coach Kelly Rae Finley
On defensive play and offensive transition…
“That’s awesome. That’s something we’ve been working on all week, and we had worked hard before our exhibition on transitioning through the center of the floor and flowing into our zone offense. This week gave us the opportunity to transition through the center of the floor and go into our man offense. So, we threw the ball around a little bit more than we would have liked, but I was really pleased with our overall effort on both sides of the court today.”
On overall effort…
“Again, that’s something that we’ve worked really hard on, is consistency. I think if you ask any of the women on our team, they would tell you we are working on our consistency. That goes from day-in to day-out, to offense to defense, both ends of the floor. We had some lapses today, but that’s why it’s early in the season, and again, very pleased with our first game of the year.”
On the rebounding effort…
“We had 14 offensive rebounds. Again, playing through every possession. That’s something that we do in practice every single day. Jordan is an elite rebounder, she’s an elite offensive rebounder and that’s something that we expect from her every night.”
Graduate Guard Kiara Smith
On how the defense has grown…
“Our defense has grown tremendously, that’s one thing that Coach Kelly stresses in practice every single day, just to defend to the best of our abilities. I think that once we locked in to that, it really showed on the court and we really made it a priority to defend as hard as we could.”
On playing hard to the end…
“It’s definitely been a focus. A lot of our conversations aren’t really too much on who we’re playing against, but it’s more so about ourselves and what we want to do for ourselves. The more we talk about our self the more we’re going to try to bring it on and we want to play our game for the full 40 minutes no matter what the scoreboard is.”
On the strong start to her final season…
“It’s really nice. It’s good to play with them, I think that’s what makes it the best part about it, is to play with all 13 of them. The way that we like to play for each other and the way we celebrate each other on this team. It’s great and it’s exciting to see. It’s a good feeling for sure.”
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