Wake Forest pulls away from Gators despite Riley Kugel's big night
Wake Forest pulled away from Florida in the final minutes of the inaugural ACC/SEC Challenge, handing the Gators an 82-71 loss on Wednesday night.
After a back-and-forth contest down the stretch that was tied 66-all with 4:03 left, the Demon Deacons scored five straight points and closed out the game on a 16-5 run.
The Gators, who were without starting center Micah Handlogten for the third consecutive contest, did not score a field goal for the final four minutes of the game.
They were up 36-32 at halftime and stretched their lead to nine points, but a 10-3 run by Wake Forest tied the game at 52-all midway through the second period.
“We did a good job of building a nine-point lead in the second half, and then I thought we softened up,” UF coach Todd Golden said in his postgame radio interview. “We just didn’t guard well enough is the bottom line. Allowed them to shoot 61 percent from the field in the second half and gave up 50 points.”
After a career-high 25 points by sophomore guard Riley Kugel against Baylor, he followed up that performance with a 24-point game at Wake Forest. He shot 9-for-14 from the floor, including 4-for-6 from 3-point range.
It marks the second time in his career with back-to-back 20-point games after scoring 20 at Vandy and 24 vs. Kentucky last season. He became the first UF freshman since Kenny Boynton (2009-10) to post back-to-back 20-point games.
“Obviously Riley I thought played a really good game. I thought he did really well,” Golden said. “Riley had some big-time baskets that he created on his own. They’re guarding us sticky, man. We gotta have more toughness and more tenacity. … Offensively, we allowed that to slow us down, bog us down.
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“We kept trying to drive into spaces where there was nothing really available and it clearly bothered us in the second half. We had multiple opportunities to extend the lead. Once we got it, we weren’t able to do that. We allowed them to have a little hope, have a little fight, and obviously we weren’t able to withstand their rally late.”
Wake Forest had a pair of 20-point scorers Wednesday. Junior guard Hunter Sallis led the team with 24 points and senior forward Andrew Carr finished with 22 points, a team-high six rebounds and three blocked shots.
The Gators fell behind in the game’s opening minutes, but a 12-2 run put them ahead 20-17 midway through the first period. There were seven more lead changes until the break, but UF closed out the half on a 7-2 run.
“We knew this was gonna be really a tough game. Good team, coming on their home floor. Long trip in New York. Thought it took us a little bit to get our legs under us,” said Golden, whose Gators had several calls that didn’t go their way Wednesday night.
“We just didn’t guard well enough to give ourselves a great chance. We reaped what we sowed tonight. You’re not going to get 50-50 calls on the road, especially in the ACC/SEC Challenge. You gotta be able to push through that. You gotta win by enough to where those calls can’t affect you, and tonight we didn’t do that.”
Florida (4-3) is back home on Tuesday at 7 p.m. against Merrimack College.
