Jan. 3, 2011

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GAINESVILLE, Fla.- Senior Delroy James scored a game-high 23 points as the Florida Gators knocked off the Runnin' Rams by a score of 84-59 on Monday night at the O'Connell Center.

The lose drops URI's record to 9-5 as the Gators improve to 11-3.

The Gators jumped out to an early 5-0 before senior Will Martell made a pair of layups to cut the lead to one, 5-4 with 16:32 remaining in the first half.

Following a dunk by Florida's Vernon Macklin gave the Gators a 12-6, the Runnin' Rams scored four straight to cut the lead to 12-10 with 13:19 remaining in the opening half.

After a dunk by James kept URI within a point (13-12) with 11:45 left in the first half, the Gators would go on a 12-0 run to build a 25-12 lead as the Rams would go scoreless for almost three and a half minutes.

The Runnin' Rams would again go on a long scoreless drought as almost five minutes would pass before the Rams hit a bucket while Florida would score 10 straight points to build its biggest lead of the first half at 35-14.

However, the Runnin' Rams would not go quietly in the final minutes of the first half as URI went on an 8-3 run over the final 3:55 to cut the UF lead to 38-24.

James led all first half scores with 10 points on 4-of-10 shooting while Erving Walker scored nine points on 3-of-4 shooting for the Gators.

James' dunk to open the scoring in the second half that cut the Florida lead to 38-26 would mark the closest Rhody would get to the Gators as UF's hot shooting (48.5%) in the second half was too much for the Runnin' Rams to overcome.

James earned the game-high 23 points on 8-of-18 shooting, including 3-of-9 from behind the arc while Senior Will Martell chipped in 13 points on 6-of-9 shooting. Akeem Richmond finished with seven points.

Chandler Parsons led the attack for Florida with 18 points on 7-of-12 shooting including 3-of-4 from three-point range. Walker added 14 points while Kenny Boynton and Alex Tyus each had 10.

Catch the Runnin' Rams in action this Sunday evening at the Ryan Center as URI opens the A-10 Conference portion of its schedule against Xavier. Tip-off is set for 6:30 p.m.