Nassau, Bahamas (SportsNetwork.com) - Kennedy Meeks led five North Carolina scorers with 18 points to go with 13 rebounds as the No. 5 Tar Heels defeated 18th-ranked Florida, 75-64, in the fifth-place game of the Battle 4 Atlantis on Friday.
Marcus Paige scored 16 points, Brice Johnson had 10 and seven rebounds and Justin Jackson and J.P. Tokoto chipped in 12 and 10 points, respectively, for the Tar Heels (5-1), who were coming off a 78-56 win over No. 22 UCLA on Thursday.
Kasey Hill had a game-high 20 points and Michael Frazier finished with 17 points and nine rebounds for the Gators, who have dropped two of their last three games.
The Tar Heels jumped out to a 12-0 lead as Jackson scored five points in the spurt and Paige's layup capped it six minutes into the game.
Jackson's trey after a prior 8-0 run, which was bookended by a pair of Meeks layups, extended North Carolina's advantage to 25-8 at 7:04 and the Tar Heels took a 39-23 lead into halftime.
Florida came out of the break scoring 10 of the first 14 points. Jon Horford nailed down a 3-pointer and then dunked to cut the Gators' deficit to 43-33 four minutes into the second half.
Frazier drained a 3-pointer to make it a seven-point game with just over two minutes to play, but that was as close as Florida would get the rest of the way.
Game Notes
North Carolina leads the all-time series, 4-2 ... The most recent meeting was a 71-59 Florida win in the 2000 NCAA Final Four in Indianapolis ... The Tar Heels owned a 32-22 advantage on points in the paint ... North Carolina shot 23-for-51 (45.1 percent) from the floor, while Florida went 20-for-61 (32.8 percent).
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