Colleges

Productive break pays off for UF's Speights

The St. Petersburg resident has his best game for the Gators in their last game before SEC play begins.

By ANTONYA ENGLISH
Published January 3, 2008

GAINESVILLE - Marreese Speights went home to St. Petersburg over the holidays and did what he loves: hanging out with family and watching basketball. During the short break, he spent time watching film with his mom, trying to determine what he has been doing wrong.

Apparently he got a lot out of it.

He scored 24 and had 15 rebounds, both career highs, to lead Florida to an 88-70 victory over High Point on Wednesday at the O'Connell Center. It was his fourth double double.

"Being home around my family, that's real relaxing for me," the 6-10, 245-pound freshman said. "That takes all the stress off me. I just came back fresh and ready to play. My (offense) is coming along. I always had it, but sometimes my shots weren't falling. I used to be rushing. Now I'm not rushing really, I'm going out there and being patient. I'm way more relaxed. I think it was the Christmas break."

Florida (13-2) led by as many as 19 in the first half and held a 16-point lead at halftime. It could have been much worse for the Panthers, who shot 41.7 percent from 3-point range in the first half.

It was the 3-point shot that, albeit briefly, made the second half interesting. Three of High Point's first four baskets were 3-pointers, and it pulled within 58-51 with 12:53 left. But Florida outscored the North Carolina school 17-7 during the next five minutes, led by Speights and Jonathan Mitchell (12 points). Mitchell, the freshman forward, has hit 13 of his past 14 shots. Freshman guard Nick Calathes also scored in double figures.

The Gators open SEC play Tuesday against Alabama. With a strength of schedule that is 336 out of 341 in the latest Sagarin rankings, the biggest question is whether Florida is ready.

"Certainly we're starting a different time," coach Billy Donovan said. "It's a grueling 2 1/2 months when you go through the league and familiarity and tape and you're playing for something. There's a league champion, a tournament champion. You're playing for more now.

"Are we prepared experience-wise for everything we're going to face? No. But I don't think that five, eight, nine Top 20 teams or three Top 20 teams gets you ready for that. I just think there's certain things you're going to experience during a nonconference schedule and there's certain things you aren't going to experience. Do I think we've experienced all we need to experience? Absolutely not. But I don't think it's necessarily because of our schedule."

Florida 88

High Point 70

[Last modified January 3, 2008, 01:05:07]