Florida 91, North Florida 60: Gators roll despite soaring Dallas Moore

About half an hour into the first half of Florida’s 91-60 win over North Florida in Jacksonville on Thursday night, I tweeted this:

Moore scored 31, a career high, no other Osprey scored more than seven points, and Florida won by 31. So I was close, is what I’m saying.

Apart from Moore, Florida did a fine job defending the Ospreys, who shot 38.5 percent from the floor when including his 12-for-21 performance, and just 25 percent collectively on their other 32 shots of the night. And there wasn’t really a defense for some of what Moore did, as he took and made deep threes with reckless abandon, and hit tricky layups past multiple defenders.

The Gators’ offense, meanwhile, really got going late in both halves, finishing the first period on a 16-5 run and closing the game on a 15-6 spurt. Chris Chiozza led Florida with 16 points off the bench, and added eight assists, four rebounds, and three steals in his best game of the year so far, and Canyon Barry (12 points, four rebounds) also helped Florida’s bench score 60 points on a night when no starter scored more than Devin Robinson’s 10 points.

Florida improves to 7-1 on the year with the victory, and now has four days off to prepare for the marquee game of its non-conference schedule: A meeting with mighty Duke at Madison Square Garden on Tuesday.