Texas A&M holds off Florida rally for seventh straight win
COLLEGE STATION, Texas (AP) — Julius Marble scored 19 points, Dexter Dennis had 11 points and 16 rebounds, and Texas A&M held off a late Florida rally, beating the Gators 54-52 on Wednesday night.
The Aggies (13-5, 5-0 SEC) won their seventh straight game and haven’t lost since the starting lineup of Marble, Dennis, Henry Coleman, Wade Taylor and Tyrece Radford was established at the end of the last month.
After leading by 11 points at halftime, the Aggies clung to their dwindling lead throughout the second half. An alley-oop dunk from Florida’s Colin Castleton drew the Gators 46-44 with 1:43 to go before Taylor made both ends of one-and-one for a four-point lead over Texas A&M with 1: 01 to do.
Riley Kugel’s 3-pointer with 29 seconds left gave the Gators a point for the first time in 34 minutes of play, then Taylor converted another one-and-one to give the Aggies a 52-49 lead with 23 seconds to play. Florida’s Myreon Jones missed a layup, Castleton’s follow-up was blocked by Andersson Garcia and Tyreece Radford broke away for a dunk that gave the Aggies a 54-49 lead with four seconds left.
Florida had one last chance after Jones hit a 3-pointer and Garcia lost the ball on the inbounds play, but Jones’ 3-pointer at the buzzer was off the mark.
Castleton finished with 14 points and 13 rebounds, and Jones scored 10 points for the Gators (10-8, 3-3).
As has been the case in every game of their three-game winning streak, the Gators came out missing in the first half, this time to the extreme. Florida had two shots in the first half and trailed 23-12 at the break. The Gators were 2 for 26 from the field (7.7%), 1 for 11 on 3-point range and made 7 of 10 free throws.
Florida trailed by 13 in the first half against Georgia, by seven against LSU and by 11 against Missouri. The Gators won all three games.
___
More AP college basketball: https://apnews.com/hub/college-basketball and https://apnews.com/hub/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll and https://twitter.com/AP_Top25
Comments are closed.