GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) -- No. 8 Florida got its first taste of the grind Thursday night.

Playing its third game in five nights, the Gators won a battle of wills against a team unwilling to run the floor with them, pulling away late for an 80-53 victory over North Carolina-Wilmington.

	Donnell Harvey and Florida rose up to avoid a letdown against the Seahawks Thursday.

Mike Miller matched his season high with 20 points to give the Gators (9-1) their first seven-game winning streak since 1988-89, the season of their only Southeastern Conference title.

The victory came in coach Billy Donovan's 100th game at Florida, but it certainly wasn't one that will stand out in the archives.

"I thought this would be the most emotionally challenging game of the year for us," said Donovan, whose team beat Rutgers 85-65 late Tuesday night. "It was based on the fact that we came off an emotional win on national TV, we got in a 5 a.m., we were fatigued and we didn't get a whole lot done from a scouting standpoint."

They also faced a team in UNC-Wilmington (6-2) that came in with a six-game winning streak and a stubborn penchant for slowing things down.

For one half, it worked, and when Craig Callahan hit a 17-foot jumper just before halftime, the Seahawks trailed just 33-28.

Florida pulled away four minutes after halftime when Miller and Teddy Dupay sandwiched 3-pointers around a dunk by Kenyan Weaks for a 45-30 lead.

From there, Wilmington stayed with its deliberate pace, but was unable to find good shots. The Seahawks shot 32 percent from the floor in the second half and the Gators kept pulling away.

"The first five minutes of the second half were critical," Seahawks coach Jerry Wainwright said. "They responded, we didn't. We missed a couple of shots and they scored on their first four possessions. And as soon as it gets double digits on the road ..."

Miller matched his season high on 5-for-7 shooting, including 4-for-6 from 3-point range. The Gators made a season-high 12 3-pointers.

Weaks finished with 20 points and surpassed the 1,000-point mark for his career on his dunk early in the second half.

Dupay had nine points and five assists. After an early-season slump, he has 18 assists and seven steals with just three turnovers in his last three games.

"This was good, because it gave us a chance to come down and execute in the halfcourt," Dupay said. "Sometimes it's tough, but tonight I think we showed we're a versatile basketball team."

Tallahassee native Brett Blizzard led the Seahawks with 14 points, but never got into a good flow and finished 4-for-10 from the field. He was the only player in double figures for North Carolina-Wilmington, a member of the Colonial Athletic Association, which is seeking its first NCAA trip this season.

"We get to learn from this," Blizzard said. "We have to recognize that when they make a run, we have to withstand it, fight back and make our own push. We have to make plays just as they do. I think we can take the positives from this game and get better."

Wilmington's Dominick Scott took a vicious but inadvertent elbow to the jaw from Florida's Donnell Harvey in the final minute that delayed the game for about five minutes. Scott walked off the floor under his own power. Wainwright said he would be taken to Orlando for X-rays late Thursday night.