No. 2 Florida overcomes Henderson, beats Ole Miss
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Oxford, MS (SportsNetwork.com) - Scottie Wilbekin scored 18 points and dished out seven assists to help second-ranked Florida to a 75-71 win over Ole Miss.
Michael Frazier II tallied 17 points and Patric Young added 12 for Florida (25-2, 14-0 SEC), which extended its winning streak to 19 consecutive games.
It's likely the Gators will be No. 1 in the nation come Monday when the new polls are released. That's because top-ranked Syracuse fell at No. 5 Duke Saturday night.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}This was the first meeting between the schools since the Gators blew a 12- point halftime lead to the Rebels in last year's SEC Tournament title game and eventually lost 66-63.
Marshall Henderson scored all of his 22 points in the first half to lead Ole Miss (16-11, 7-7), which has lost four straight games. Henderson, who finished 7-20 from the field, missed all six of his attempts in the second half.
"All of (Henderson's) shots were pretty difficult," said Ole Miss coach Andy Kennedy. "He was 7-for-14 in the first half. He made some hard ones and four- point plays. He's always going to have difficult shots because of the way teams play him."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Jarvis Summers finished with 20 points and Anthony Perez deposited 10 in defeat.
Perez tied the game at 59-apiece with a jumper just before the under-eight media timeout. Young then opened and closed a 7-0 run with a dunk and a pair of free throws to give the Gators a 66-59 edge.
The Rebels couldn't make up the margin in the closing minutes with Martavious Newby hitting a 3 late to account for the final margin.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I thought we did pretty good offensively," Florida coach Billy Donovan admitted. "I thought we made good decisions. We executed."
Earlier, Henderson scored six straight - including a four-point play - to tie the game at 24-24 with just over nine minutes left in the first half.
Florida proceeded to go on a 10-0 run with Frazier II and Dorian Finney-Smith bookending the spurt with shots from beyond the arc.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Henderson then made two 3s around a Summers trey to cut the deficit to one, 34-33, and the Rebels later grabbed the lead on an Aaron Jones jumper with under three minutes to play.
Ole Miss led by two when Henderson fouled Wilbekin with one second remaining and the Florida guard nailed both from the line to tie the game at 42-42 at the break.
Game Notes
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Florida now leads the all-time series 62-43 ... Ole Miss fell to 0-9 against No. 2 ranked teams ... Florida outrebounded Ole Miss 34-32 ... Jones had a game-high nine rebounds for Ole Miss ... Florida shot 24-of-54 from the field, while Ole Miss made 27-of-60 attempts ... The Gators were 15-of-19 from the free-throw line.