Sloppy play kills Florida as they dropped a key SEC game to South Carolina (14-9, 5-4 SEC) 77-71. Poor free throw shooting and turnovers hurt the Gators late as they squandered a 9 point lead in the second half.

Erving Walker led Florida in scoring with 20 points. Kenny Boyton chipped in with, and Chandler Parsons added 13. Devan Downey lead all scorer’s with 24 for South Carolina.

Florida (17-7, 6-4 SEC) took control of the game early in the first half and led 35-31 at half time as the Gators shot 68% in the first half.

The second half was a different story though as Florida only 48% from the field. But the main story was turnovers and missed free throws. Florida had 20 turnovers in the game and was only 10-23 from the line. The gators came in to the game as the third best free throw shooting team in the SEC.

Florida kept South Carolina’s star Devan Downey in check for most of the game as 11 of his 24 was from the free throw line. As the gators were focused on Downey guard Raley-Ross capitalized on that as he went for 20 and had 4 big three pointers in the second half.

One Positive for the gators was rebounding as Florida out rebounded South Carolina 39- 27 as forward Alex Tyus had a career high 15 boards

The Gators are back in action in Gainesville this Saturday as they host Xavier at 6:00 pm on ESPN.