PARADISE ISLAND, Bahamas – Stanford dropped a 72-49 decision to Florida in the Battle 4 Atlantis Thursday night at Imperial Arena.
The Cardinal (2-3) will next face Middle Tennessee State in the tournament's seventh-place game on Friday at 4 p.m. PT.
Like they did in last year's Thanksgiving matchup with the Cardinal, the Gators (3-2) opened Thursday's contest with a strong shooting performance. Florida shot nearly 60 percent in the first half and used a 21-3 run to jump ahead 28-7 early on.
Meanwhile, Stanford was cold from the field for a second straight day, shooting 21.7 percent (5-of-23) in the first half. Florida took a 32-13 lead into the break.
Stanford found its range in the second half, shooting 55 percent overall in the period. However, Florida continued to shoot the ball well, connecting on 58.6 percent of its field goals to maintain a double-digit advantage the entire half.
Freshman Cormac Ryan scored all of his team-high 12 points in the second half for the Cardinal, tallying all his points on three-pointers. Ryan knocked down threes on three consecutive Cardinal possessions to cut it to 52-36 midway through the period.
The Gators countered with threes twice during the stretch, however, to prevent Stanford from cutting further into their lead.
Senior Josh Sharma collected six points and five rebounds in 20 minutes for the Cardinal.
Florida got a career-high 19 points from Deaundrae Ballard and 13 from KeVaughn Allen in the win.