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ANTONYA ENGLISHJunior hits 12-of-12 from field, but careless play tarnishes the Gators' 101-84 win over Northeastern.
GAINESVILLE - The last time Florida played at home, junior forward David Lee had his worst outing of the season. Monday night, the Gators returned home for the first time in two weeks and Lee was the mark of perfection.
Literally.
Lee hit 12-of-12 from the field and scored a game-high 24 to help lead Florida 101-84 over Northeastern in front of 9,122 at the O'Connell Center.
He became the fifth player in SEC history to go 12-of-12, the first since 1994, three off the NCAA record set by Louisville's Clifford Rozier on Dec. 11, 1993, against Eastern Kentucky. Lee also broke the Florida record of 10-for-10 set by Randall Leath in 1987.
"David Lee is a really good basketball player," Northeastern coach Ron Everhart said. "He kind of did what he wanted to do with us. ... I thought he played a great game. Thankfully we don't see a lot of guys like him in our league."
The 17-point victory looks good on paper, but Florida's second-half performance didn't please coach Billy Donovan.
The Gators appeared in command with a 24-point halftime lead after outscoring the Huskies 33-10 to end the half. But mistakes (15 turnovers in the second half) allowed Northeastern to make it a game late.
Trailing 69-43, the Huskies went on a 19-2 run to pull within 71-62. But with a 75-64 lead, the Gators' next four field goals were 3-pointers, allowing them to pull away for good.
"Our basketball team needs to grow up mentally," Donovan said. "They don't handle it well when things personally don't go well for them in a game. They have to be able to fight through that and show at least a little better level of toughness mentally. ... I compare it to a 2-year-old when he can't have his way, he stomps his feet and carries on. We wanted the second half to be easy."
Northeastern shot 20-of-36 from the free-throw line, prompting Everhart to say "we killed ourselves at the line." Junior guard Marcus Barnes scored 15 of his team-high 20 in the first half. Javorie Wilson and Cornellius Wright added 12 and 10, respectively. Guard Juan Jose Barea, playing in his first game after missing four with a knee injury, scored 17 and had eight assists. Four of seven players on the Northeastern roster are from Florida.
"I know what it meant to these kids," Everhart said. "They all wanted to come in here and give a great effort."
For its part, Florida had 30 assists and shot 61.8 percent from the field. With Lee, three others scored in double figures: Christian Drejer (20), Anthony Roberson (17) and Matt Walsh (13).
Lee, who thought he missed a shot early in the first half, said he was pleased with his performance, but the Gators are not "anywhere close" to where they need to be as a team.
"All nine or 10 guys on rotation right now need to realize we need to be more consistent playing two halves," Lee said.
"In an SEC game, if we would have played like we did in the first half we probably would be up eight or 10 points. And in the second half, if we had played the way we did, we probably would have lost the game. So we need to learn how to put together two good halves. Now it's just realizing what our team needs to do and doing it all the time."