Kenny Boynton scored 20 points and No. 12
Florida pulled away in the second half to beat Auburn, 63-47, on Tuesday.
Bradley Beal and Erving Walker added 13 points apiece for the Gators (22-6,
10-3 SEC), who outscored Auburn 36-17 after halftime to win their third game
in a row.
Florida made 11 three-pointers in the game, including seven in the second
half.
The news wasn't all good. Forward Will Yeguete broke his left foot during the
game and is expected to miss the remainder of the season. He started 10 games
this season.
Adrian Forbes scored 11 points to lead Auburn (14-13, 4-9) while a banged-up
Kenny Gabriel had eight. The Tigers, who had a 30-27 lead at the break, have
lost six of eight.
Gabriel, the team's second leading scorer entering the game, came down hard on
his back in the lane after he was called for a charge midway through the first
half. He played just 20 minutes.
Recently dominant in the series, Florida beat Auburn for the fourth straight
time. But the Gators needed a big second half to do so.
They shot better than 48 percent after halftime, including 7-of-12 from three-
point range, while Auburn shot just over 30 percent and was 1-of-7 from long
range.
"You're not going to beat an explosive offensive team like Florida when you're
not knocking down shots," said Auburn coach Tony Barbee. "We did a good job
holding them to seven points under their average, but a big key was that we
were going to have to score.
"We had 11 points in the second half up until two minutes to go in the game.
You're not winning the game on their floor when they are a veteran, seasoned
team. We knew they were going to make a run, and we just didn't have the
firepower to counter-punch it."
Florida's first five makes in the second half were three-pointers. Boynton had
three of them, including the capper on a 15-7 run that gave the Gators a 42-37
lead.
They never trailed after that. Walker and Beal had back-to-back layups later
on to make it 51-39 with 6 1/2 minutes remaining and Auburn was never closer
than 10 the rest of the way.
"The way we played the second half was much, much better," said Florida coach
Billy Donovan. "We dug ourselves a hole and then we contributed to a lot of
Auburn's success in the first half with offensive rebounds and turnovers."
Auburn had a three-point lead at halftime despite shooting just 35.5 percent
from the field to Florida's 62.5 percent.
The difference was in the number of shots: Auburn went 11-for-31, including 5-
for-10 from three-point range and the Gators were a more economical 10-for-16
overall and 4-of-9 from long range.
Forbes led all players with nine points in the half for Auburn, while Boynton
scored eight for Florida.
Game Notes
Auburn leads the all-time series 87-72, but Florida has won 14 of the last 15
meetings...Donovan is 17-4 versus Auburn, including 8-0 at home...Florida has
three regular season games remaining: at Georgia and Vanderbilt, then home
versus No. 1 Kentucky...Auburn's remaining games are vs. Arkansas, at Alabama
and home against LSU.
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