No. 2 Florida 79, Arkansas 72

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) Taurean Green scored 17 points and Corey Brewer added 13 to lead No. 2 Florida to a 79-72 victory over Arkansas on Tuesday night.<br/> <br/>At halftime, the sellout crowd at the

Tuesday, January 9th 2007, 9:28 pm

By: News On 6

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) Taurean Green scored 17 points and Corey Brewer added 13 to lead No. 2 Florida to a 79-72 victory over Arkansas on Tuesday night.

At halftime, the sellout crowd at the O'Connell Center welcomed the Gators football team, which beat Ohio State 41-14 on Monday night in the BCS championship game. That made Florida the first school to hold the national championships in Division I football and basketball at the same time.

The Gators (15-2, 2-0 Southeastern Conference) built an early 12-point lead, then spent the rest of the night holding off the Razorbacks (12-4, 1-1), who briefly took the lead before faltering over the last 10 minutes.

Joakim Noah and Al Horford both scored 11 points for Florida, which has all five starters back from the team that won the school's first basketball title last spring.

Darian Townes led Arkansas with 18 points and 10 rebounds, while Sonny Weems finished with 13.

Arkansas coach Stan Heath felt the Razorbacks played their best game of the season in routing Alabama 88-61 last Saturday and hoped his team's quickness and size inside would help neutralize Florida's frontcourt of Noah, Horford and Brewer.

With Noah and Horford riding the bench for much of the 1st half with 2 fouls, Florida squandered most of an early 12-point lead before settling for a 37-36 halftime lead.

Patrick Beverley's 3-pointer gave Arkansas its only lead of the game, 54-53 with 10:30 remaining, however poor long-range shooting ultimately doomed the Razorbacks.

Arkansas misfired on 13 of 15 shots from behind the 3-point line and shot 42 percent overall. Meanwhile, Lee Humphrey's third 3-pointer of the game gave Florida a 9-point lead with just over a minute remaining to end any chance of a comeback by the
Razorbacks.

Gary Ervin had 11 points and 9 assists for Arkansas, while Beverley, the Razorbacks' leading scorer, had 10 points of 3-10 shooting.