The Florida Gators did well to start their road game at Ole Miss on Monday night without falling into the sort of hole that had proven too deep to climb out of in previous SEC road games. And in the early going, they responded well to Ole Miss coming out of halftime scalding, too.
But the short-handed Gators kept clanging their threes and could not stop Ole Miss drives — and those elements turned out to be lethal in a dispiriting 70-54 loss.
Playing without Colin Castleton for the third straight game, Florida kept its defensive intensity high for the first half, holding the Rebels to the same 22 points that they got.