Florida Gators
Vanderbilt
Gator Men Fall Short to Vanderbilt 63-61
Saturday, January 20, 2001 | Men's Basketball
Florida's failure to make free throws down the stretch aided the Commodores. Brett Nelson and LaDarius Halton missed four consecutive foul shots in the final minute. The Gators led 60-52 with 3:30 to play, but didn't make a field goal from that point on. Meanwhile, Vandy went on an 8- 0 run to go ahead 62-61. Greg Lapointe's free throw with five seconds left made it 63-61 before Green missed the final shot of the game.
"This was a game where, to a certain extent, we gave the game away," said head coach Billy Donovan in his postgame radio interview. "We were 0 for 4 in the last two or three minutes from the free throw line, we did not guard correctly, they made some three-point shots and I thought our guys played not to lose."
Vandy made just one three-pointer in the first half, but made seven in the second half with Plavich and Chuck Moore making three apiece. "That was the big thing I circled on the blackboard at halftime and that was they were 1 for 10 from the three-point line and we needed to do a good job stopping the three," said Donovan.
Udonis Haslem led the Gators with 20 points and 11 rebounds,giving him six double-doubles this season. Brett Nelson scored 17 and Matt Bonner added 10 while Major Parker made two three-pointers and scored 8.
The Gators have now dropped two in-a-row, snapping a school-record and SEC leading streak of 60 games played without back to back losses. Florida's record falls to 11-4, 1-3 in the SEC. Vanderbilt is 13-4 overall and 3-2 in the league. The Gators visit the Auburn Tigers Wednesday January 24th at 8 p.m. eastern.
