Colin Castleton powers Gators to win with career-high 33 points

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida men’s basketball team improved to 2-0 on the season Friday behind a stellar showing from Colin Castleton. The preseason first-team All-SEC selection led the Gators to an 88-78 win over Kennesaw State with a career-high 33 points.

Castleton finished 12-for-18 from the floor and 9-for-13 from the free throw line. He also stuffed the box score with nine rebounds, three blocked shots, three assists and two steals.

“Pretty dang good. Pretty dang good,” Gators coach Todd Golden said of Castleton’s performance. “It’s the advantage of having a fifth-year senior who is an All-SEC player, a guy who is pretty comfortable out there. He allows us to keep it pretty simple in terms of what we do offensively. We just try to get him good catches in spots where he is comfortable.”

His 33 points were the most by a Gator since Jalen Hudson had 33 vs. LSU in 2019. It also marked the first 30-point game for Castleton, whose previous career high was 29 points last season against Arkansas.

“It felt good,” he said. “I feel like as a team, we just imposed our will a little bit in the paint. That was our mindset going into the game, my teammates just put me in a good spot whether that was ball screen coverages that they were playing or just finding my little spots on the floor where I can get easy ones and get to my spots and nice shots. It felt good but I felt we could’ve done a lot of things better tonight, but we got a W so that’s all that matters.”

The Gators built a 14-point lead in the first half, but Kennesaw State cut it to 10 at the break and single-digits on a few possessions in the second period. Florida held off the Owls with some big shots from Castleton and Kowacie Reeves, who had 11 points.

Reeves was one of three double-digit scorers for Florida, as Will Richard followed up his opening night performance with 15 points on 6-for-10 shooting.

“We scored 88. I thought we did a good job playing with purpose,” Goldens aid. “We thought we had an advantage inside tonight. We didn’t think they had a guy that could really bother Colin enough. We prepared for them to double team us and we were able to throw out and do a good job of attacking that and not turning the ball over.

“Offensively, I think we played well enough and with a purpose. We only shot 11 threes. Wacie hit some big threes in the second half. Did a good enough job of making our free throws, 72 percent is a little above average, I’ll take that. Overall, offensively, I’ll take how we played tonight.”

Defensively, however, Golden and his staff will have some areas to address with the players, particularly their second-half defense. Kennesaw State hit 17 of 32 shots after intermission, matched the Gators on the glass (14-all) and scored 42 points in the paint for the game.

Preseason All-Sun forward Chris Youngblood led the Owls with 20 points and point Terrell Burden finished with 14.

“I don’t think our ball screen coverage was good enough in the middle of the floor. We had some miscommunications on that,” Golden said. “The point guard’s good. Burden is a good player. He does a good job getting downhill and kind of rejecting ball screens and then playing with a lot of poise in the paint. He uses his body to kind of knock guys off and gain some extra space for himself. That was a big issue. We got straight line driven a little too much. Guys not being able to keep guys in front.

“Kennesaw is a little undersized, they’re quick, they’re athletic. They’re a good offensive team so they spread us out a little bit. I thought we defended the three-point line pretty well. We held them to four threes up until the last minute and half where their four-man hit a couple of threes when Colin was in the game guarding him. Those straight-line drives and in our ball screen coverage, we kind of need to do a little better.”

The Gators (2-0) return to the O’Dome on Monday night against Florida Atlantic (1-1) and coach Dusty May, an assistant under former UF coach Mike White. The Owls suffered an 80-67 loss at Ole Miss on Friday.