GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Georgia scored the last 10 points of the first half to take a fat 15-point lead into the locker room. On the other side of Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, Florida coach Mike White put a statement to his players. 

"Are you guys scared?" White asked. "If you don't want to play on the big stage, why did you even come here?" 

The words resonated. 

"I took that personally," sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson said. 

So how did the Gators respond to start the second half? By letting the Bulldogs take that 15-point lead out to 22 through the first four minutes. That, apparently, was when the personal stuff really kicked in. Over the final 16 minutes, the Gators unleashed an altogether different version than the one that was flailing about the better part of the night, as sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard scored 19 of his career-high 25 points over the final 11-plus minutes — including 11 of his team's final 12 points — to complete a miraculous comeback and 81-75 victory before a bummed-turned-bewildered-turn-bedazzled Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center crowd. 

Johnson scored 15 points, including a pair of big second-half 3s, and grabbed seven rebounds. Grad-transfer forward Kerry Blackshear Jr. had 12 points and six rebounds, while backup freshman guard Tre Mann came off the bench to score all 11 of his points in the second half and pace the Gators (14-8, 6-3) to a second straight Southeastern Conference win. 

Not exactly your garden variety SEC win, either.
 
Think about this: Just 32 days after staging the second-largest comeback in program history — rallying from 21 down in the first half to beat Alabama in double-overtime on Jan. 4 — UF one-upped that by equaling the 22-point come-from-behind win at South Carolina on Feb. 24, 1993. In the end, the latest rally also equaled the second-largest in NCAA Division I this season. 

"I've never played on a team like this," Nembhard said after going 10-for-16 from the floor over 36 minutes to go with four rebounds, three assists and two steals. "We need to figure out how to play a full 40."

Florida trailed 52-30 and seemingly had no answer for UGA freshman phenom wing Anthony Edwards, who was on his way to scoring 32 points and hitting six of nine from the 3-point line. With his team getting pummeled at the outset of the second period, White decided to take a look at a lineup of four freshman -- Why not? -- and it was little-used rookie center Jason Jitobah who hit what the team felt like an inconsequential jump hook (just his seventh made field goal of the season) at the 16:24 mark. It cut the Bulldogs' lead to 20. 

Turned out, Jitoboh's bucket was the start of a 37–5 run for the home team, during which the Gators not only made 13 of 17 shots, including six 3-pointers (two by Johnson and Mann, one each from Nembhard and Blackshear), but also slapped a 3-2 zone defense on the Bulldogs (12-10, 2-7) that stifled Edwards and his teammates. Nembhard's 3 at the 8:36 mark gave UF its first lead since the 13-minute point of the first half, but the Gators continued on the blitz and actually built a 10-point cushion, 69-59, when Nembhard popped a jumper from the elbow with just under six minutes to go. 

"The confidence level from the first half to the second half was totally different," White said.  

Georgia, which shot 55 percent in the first half, awoke from its second-half dead zone to start chipping away at the UF lead. When the Dogs gathered an offensive rebound and passed out for a second-chance 3-pointer from Donnell Gresham Jr. the UF lead was just 73-71 with 2:55 to go. 

At the other end, the 6-foot-5 Nembhard, as he did most of the night, took 5-10 point guard Sahvir Wheeler (16 points, 4 assists, 4 turnovers) to the rack to get the lead back to four with 59 seconds to go. On Georgia's ensuing possessionk, Wheeler broke the UF defense down and had a straight-line drive down the left side of the lane for a would-be layup, but UF freshman guard Scottie Lewis came with help backside help and blocked the shot, as the Gators gathered the rebound. 

"Play of the game," Georgia coach Tom Crean said. 

The Bulldogs managed to get within a single possession, at 76-73, with 31 seconds left, but a free throw by Nembhard took the margin to four and UGA got no closer. With 23 seconds left, Nembhard swiped a pass at the top of the key, took it coast-to-coast and finished with the first slam-dunk of his 57-game collegiate career and rocked the O'Dome with the finish. 
 
The Gators shot 60 percent in the second half (18-for-30), including 7-for-11 from the 3-point line (63.6 percent). Defensively, they held the Bulldogs to 37.5 percent after halftime. 

The victory left UF in sole possession of fourth place in the SEC standings, just one game behind second-place Kentucky and Auburn, and two behind front-running LSU, which was handed its first league loss of the season on the road Wednesday night at Vanderbilt, snapping a record 26-game losing streak in conference play. 

The SEC race remains wide open at its midpoint, with Florida still very much in the mix. The good version of the Gators, that is. 

"We have the capability to be a top-10 offense and defense," Lewis said. "When we truly lock in and all five guys on the court are focused, we're hard to score on and we're hard to guard." 

Now, if they can only figure how to get to that "locked in" place before the opponent gets up 20-plus points. 

"We're not the toughest team, of course. We struggle with inconsistencies, obviously, and were very emotional as a team," White said. "But a great win. I'm proud of a lot of things, but I'm not proud that we dug ourselves that big of a hole. We did a lot of great things in the second half, but we just have to play with more maturity." 

White reminded his players throughout the second half that they'd been in such a hole before (Alabama) and found a way out last time. So, yes, they could do it again. Here's betting he'd rather not be in that hole in the first place. 

A good start on that front would be playing a full game in the high gear the Gators hit in the final 16 minutes, as the UF point guard suggested. Maybe take things a little more personally before the game.  

"We have to learn from this," Nembhard said. "If we want to be the best team we can be and win more games in the SEC, we have to be better for a whole 40 minutes."