ATHENS, Ga. — A post-game chat with freshman guard Scottie Lewis began with a mention of Florida's rough start Wednesday night on the road at Georgia. How bad was it? The Bulldogs, riding the emotions of "Senior Night," hit their first seven field-goal attempts, including four 3-pointers, and dumped the Gators in a 13-point hole barely five minutes after the opening tip. 

Lewis gave a slight shrug and smile. 

"I mean, we've been in worse places, obviously," he said. 

True that. Like the last time UF and UGA butted heads a month ago in Gainesville. In that one, the Gators were being pummeled by 22 in the second half, only to rally for the biggest comeback win in the program's 106-year history. What happened this time wasn't nearly as historic, but every bit as significant, especially on the road, for this team.

Sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson scored 18 points and grabbed 11 rebounds, carding his eighth double-double of the season, while sophomore shooting guard Noah Locke dropped 11 of his 17 points after halftime, including a trio of 3-pointers, to rally the Gators to a 68-54 win at Stegeman Coliseum. The victory, in fact, got even bigger in the moments after the game, as both Auburn and LSU lost, thus moving the Gators (19-11, 11-6) into a three-way tie for second in the Southeastern Conference standings, with the tiebreaker over both teams in hand. 

If UF can hold serve at home Saturday in the regular-season finale against No. 6 Kentucky — a big if, obviously — the Gators will get the No. 2 seed in the SEC Tournament next week at Nashville, Tenn. 

As far as the NCAA Tournament, they all but wrapped that up with this victory. 

"We have our deficiencies as a team, but our guys are resilient," Florida coach Mike White said. "They keep plugging away." 

Where they plugged perhaps like no time this season was on the defensive end. Georgia came into the game having averaged just shy of 90 points the previous three outings, but the Gators held the Bulldogs (15-15, 4-13) to their season-low point total, with standout freshman/future NBA lottery pick Anthony Edwards, the league's No. 3 scorer at 20.8 per game in SEC play, finishing with just 14 points on 3-for-10 shooting from the floor. 

Florida alternated between man-to-man and 3-2 zone defenses pretty much evenly for the bulk of the game — "It was hard to prepare for because we did not know what was coming at us," UGA senior guard Jordan Harris said — and along the way chopped at the lead, despite going 0-for-10 from the 3-point line in the first half, and eventually got itself going on the offensive end. The Gators tied the game for the first time on a Lewis layup to start the second half, then fell behind again only to pull even on a 3-ball from backup guard Tre Mann at the 13:10 mark. It wasn't until 7:29 was left on the clock that a pair of free throws by sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard (8 points, 6 assists, 1 turnover) put the Gators ahead for good.

UF shot just 40.6 percent in the first half, but came alive to hit 52.4 after halftime, including seven of 13 from distance. UGA shot 40 percent after intermission, made just one of five 3s and turned the ball over nine times, leading to 18 of the Gators' 40 second-half points. 
 
"In the second half, we just took more pride in our defense," said Johnson who made eight of his 14 shots and also hit a big late 3 on the way to five fifth double-double over the last seven games. "We were taking it four minutes at time, with every timeout saying, 'Let's go get three stops right here.' We told each other we weren't going to get scored on."

Not the first five minutes, they didn't. Georgia's early blitz (perfection through seven shots) had the Bulldogs up 19-6, but they made just five field goals (and no 3s) the final 15 minutes of the first half and led just 30-28 heading to the locker room. UGA, which got 12 points and 10 rebounds from forward Rayshawn Hammonds (and also six turnovers), worked its lead back to six early in the period, fell behind by five, then scored six straight to lead by one, 46-45, with 7:51 to go. 

Then came Nembhard's free throws, which started a run of 10 straight by the visitors, including back-to-back 3s by Locke, followed by a downhill drive and dunk by Johnson that put the Gators up by nine five minutes to go. 

Afterward, Georgia coach Tom Crean made it clear he was not happy with the Bulldogs second-half defense, especially over the final six-plus minutes when the Gators hit seven of their final nine shots to stave off any hope of a home-team comeback.

"If Nike has 50-pound shoes, a couple of our guys had them on," he said. 

Stiller, the lead went to five on a 3-pointer by point guard Sahvir Wheeler (8 points, 6 assists, 2 turnovers) that momentarily got the home crowd's attention. 

Then Johnson dropped a 3 from the top of the key and the Gators, with that huge second half, were on their way back home with a huge victory. 

"We knew they'd hit some shots, and they did make some tough ones, while we made some mental mistakes early on," Lewis said. "But I think, the last 35 minutes or so, that was about as close to putting up a good, solid 40 in any game that we've had in a long time. If we keep guarding like that, we can do a lot of damage."