Gators snap LSU's 13-game home winning streak

The Gators snapped LSU’s 13-game home winning streak with their first road victory of the year Tuesday, 67-56, holding the Tigers to season lows in shooting (32 percent) and points.

Colin Castleton led Florida with 18 points, seven rebounds and five blocked shots, drawing 10 fouls and knocking down 12 of 15 free throws, a career high in both makes and attempts.

Defensively, Florida locked up the Tigers and scored 23 points off their 16 turnovers. UF also limited KJ Williams, a .492 3-point shooter entering the night, to 1-for-9 beyond the arc.

“It’s what our identity has become,” Florida coach Todd Golden said of the defensive effort. “We felt like we could be good defensively but early on our transition was eating us up. When we made that conscious decision after Portland to really address that, we’ve been really hard to score on the past month and a half since then.

“We did a lot of things tonight that we don’t normally do defensively. We switched a lot, and we’re generally a pretty sticky man-to-man defense where we want to stay on our own [man]. It’s the guys. They’re doing a great job guarding. This LSU team has a lot of talented offensive players, and for the most part we shut them down.”

Down 28-25 at the half, Florida weathered an 0-for-6 start from field with four turnovers in the opening minutes, falling behind 7-0 before responding with an 8-0 run. UF only committed six turnovers over the final 36 minutes. The Gators took the lead with 14 minutes left and never trailed again.

Castleton had his fourth straight game with 4-plus blocked shots, the best such streak by a Gator since Joakim Noah reeled off seven straight. Castleton has blocked 5-plus in back-to-back games for the fourth time in his career, also the first Gator since Noah did so within that same stretch.

“I felt like this was one of the best games of the year where we were the most connected,” Castleton said. “Last game was a really good building block for us, just playing with passion and every huddle we were just talking about things we were seeing on the court. Just me and Kyle [Lofton] as well as MJ [Myreon Jones] talking to each other like, ‘What do we see to get better at?’

“We were missing some shots and that’s basketball, but the little things we were doing — rebounding, blocking out, winning the 50-50 balls — and that’s what wins you basketball games in the SEC. That was the biggest thing, and coming into halftime, Coach Golden just gave us a little more energy.”

Jones played a season-high 30 minutes, adding eight points and three assists with no turnovers. His 3-pointer with 13:38 to play capped a 7-0 run that put the Gators up, 41-36.

Jones also assisted on Riley Kugel’s 3-pointer that opened up a 48-40 lead for UF with 10:14 to play. Kugel scored seven and posted a massive +21 plus-minus in 18:40 on the floor.

“At the end of the day, somebody’s gotta step up and hit some shots to get us over the hump,” Golden said. “We did a wonderful job in the second half getting to the foul line, but the two 3s we made — Myreon made one, and Riley made one in the corner in front of our bench — those were big, big shots. In a game like tonight where neither team is shooting the ball particularly well, those feel like five-pointers instead of three-pointers, and they ended up being separators.”

After LSU (12-4, 1-3 SEC) drew within four, Alex Fudge drew a key offensive foul with just under 7:00 to play and scored on an offensive rebound on the ensuing possession. Fudge scored all seven of his points in the second half in his return to LSU, where he played his freshman season.

The Gators (9-7, 2-2 SEC) will be back in the O’Dome on Saturday against No. 20 Missouri at 3:30 p.m. The Tigers (13-2, 2-1 SEC) have their next game Wednesday against Texas A&M at 7:30 p.m. on SEC Network.