WATCH: Todd Golden reacts to Florida's comeback win over LSU

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Todd Golden and the Gators rallied from a 12-point deficit against LSU to close out the regular season with a 79-67 win, posted their fourth double-digit comeback victory of the season.

Riley Kugel led Florida (16-15, 9-9 SEC) with 21 points, including 17 second-half points (4-for-5 from 3). Will Richard scored 18 points on 7-for-10 shooting, while Kyle Lofton chipped in 16 points, five rebounds and five assists on Senior Night.

UF has eight straight seasons without a losing record in SEC play — the longest such streak in the league — and is one of nine power conference teams who can make that claim (Creighton, Duke, Kansas, Michigan, Oregon, Seton Hall, Villanova, Virginia).

In the video below, Golden discusses the Gators’ second-half performance against the Tigers (13-18, 2-16 SEC), the play of Kugel and Richard, defending LSU’s KJ Williams and more.

Todd Golden quotes

On the win:

Golden: “I’m really proud of our team, our program. Obviously had a big hill to climb losing Colin (Castleton) down the stretch. It would’ve been really easy for our guys to pack it in and say let’s get to the finish line and figure out what we got. With Kyle (Lofton) and Myreon (Jones) being great leaders and Colin staying engaged with the team and holding that standard high, I felt like our guys have done a great job. Obviously, we weren’t winning early on after that stretch, but to go on the road and beat Georgia by double figures, then come back and win this thing by 12 when it didn’t look great for the first 24 minutes or so of the game. It says a lot about their resiliency as a group, but also where we’re headed as a program. We’re not going to be ok just getting to the finish line. We’re not going to be ok with decent effort. I thought Niels (Lane) and Kowacie (Reeves) did a really good job of the bench as we went to that press in the second half, getting that energy level up. I thought Denzel (Aberdeen) gave us good minutes spelling Kyle. In the early second half, I thought he was kind of out of sorts, we gave him a little rest, he came back and was great down the stretch. You don’t come back and win a game like this without multiple really good efforts, and I thought across the board, obviously Riley (Kugel) played great again tonight. Will (Richard) was fantastic with 18 points, scoring it really well and really efficiently. I thought Jason (Jitoboh) gave us really good minutes inside as well.”

On how the press changed the game:

Golden: “I think it changed the whole complexion of the game from my chair. We were struggling to get ourselves going for whatever reason. I didn’t feel like our urgency was good enough in the first half. We were quiet and weren’t talking a lot on the court. We were trying to think and manufacture ways to get out of that. The press definitely did it for us. Once we got into it, everybody was really good and really effective in it. It bothered them. It took them out of what they wanted to do. We forced some turnovers and allowed ourselves to get easy transition baskets that gave us more confidence and juice, and (play) downhill from there.”

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