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ANTONYA ENGLISHSophomore excels when the weekend begins at home, and that means a UF victory, this time 81-71 vs. Vandy.
GAINESVILLE - There's something about Anthony Roberson and Saturdays at the Stephen C. O'Connell Center.
For Florida, it's something very good.
Heading into the game against Vanderbilt, Roberson averaged 20.8 points in Saturday games at home and the Gators had won all five.
Make that six wins.
Behind the sophomore guard's 22 second-half points, Florida defeated Vanderbilt 81-71 in front of 11,971.
Florida (14-6, 5-4 SEC) ended a two-game losing streak and avenged an earlier loss to Vanderbilt. For the Commodores (14-5, 3-5), it was their 13th consecutive conference road loss.
Florida led 33-30 at halftime after its second straight game of poor first-half shooting. The Gators shot 37 percent from the field and were worse from 3-point range (5-of-13).
After center Adrian Moss hit a layup to give Florida a 35-30 lead, Roberson hit three consecutive 3-pointers between 17:53 and 16:33 to lead an 11-3 run and give the Gators a 44-33 lead. Vanderbilt during that same span was 1-of-6 from the field.
"Roberson got off there at the beginning of the second half and it was difficult for us from that point on to get back," Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings said. "We never had control of the game after that. We got back in range, but we never had control of it."
Roberson is averaging 21.5 points at home on Saturdays and shooting 56 percent from the field. After hitting one field goal in the first half, the sophomore guard finished with 25 points and had nine rebounds.
"That's a good question," Roberson said when asked about his Saturday performances. "I really don't keep track of the days, I just try to come out and give my team a lift. I missed a couple early and stayed with it and it started to fall for me in the second half."
Florida led by as much as 13 midway through the second half (53-40), but Vanderbilt went on an 14-4 run to pull within 57-54 with 5:15 left. The Gators hit 13 of 14 free throws in the final 2:07 to end it.
"I was happy to see us handle the end of a tough game better than we did against Kentucky," UF coach Billy Donovan said, referring to the Tuesday night loss in which Florida was outscored 11-0 in the final minutes.
Florida had eight turnovers, its second-best total of the season. Guard Matt Walsh added another 25 and was 14-of-14 from the free-throw line and Florida hit 21 consecutive at the free-throw line in the game.
Walsh, who had been struggling from the line, had a pregame talk with his dad.
"He just told me to slow down a little bit," Walsh said. "And that's what I did. I don't think we've ever had (21) in practice. We usually aim for 18 out of 24 or we have to run suicides."
Florida was playing without senior center Bonell Colas, who has been suspended three games due to violation of university policy. Moss, who took over the starting job from Colas three games ago, scored 10 and had seven rebounds and, according to Donovan, was able to keep Vanderbilt's leading scorer Matt Freije from dominating the game by "making him work hard for everything." Freije finished with 18 points.
Donovan said Florida's post production is still an issue. Junior forward David Lee had just four points and four rebounds.
"There's so much pressure on Roberson, Walsh and (Christian) Drejer because we're having such a hard time getting post points," Donovan said. "We've got to somehow find a way to get David to post up better and maybe get him a little bit more demanding and wanting the ball a little bit more."