Florida falls to West Virginia, 84-55

On3 imageby:Pat O'Donnell11/27/22

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The Florida Gators men’s basketball team (4-3, 0-0 SEC) was dominated on Sunday night by the West Virginia Mountaineers (6-1, 0-0 Big 12) by a score of 84-55.

It was the third and final game for UF in the Phil Knight Legacy tournament. The Gators will head back to Gainesville with a sixth-place finish of the eight teams who competed this weekend.

The loss for Florida marks the program’s first against West Virginia since 2002. Florida had a four-game win streak against WVU going into Sunday night.

“I thought we did a really poor job of dealing with adversity in the first half,” UF head coach Todd Golden said after the game. “There could’ve been a couple calls that went against us that could’ve gone our way and maybe would’ve changed things, but we did a very poor job of handling that adversity and fighting through it.”

What led to the 29-point loss for the Gators

Foul trouble was the story of the loss on Sunday night for UF. Florida finished with 25 personal fouls to West Virginia’s 19. 

At halftime, Colin Castleton had three personal fouls, and Jason Jitoboh had four of his own. After that, it seemed like Florida couldn’t do what it wanted to, and Castleton never found his groove. 

The two-time All-SEC teamer finished with a season-low 3 points, hitting just one of his six field goals. It also led to a lack of size on the court for Florida, and the Mountaineers took full advantage of it.

“It was a difficult game,” Golden said. “I thought it was very physical on both ends. Unfortunately, it was our two bigs that were paying the price in terms of getting into foul trouble. Clearly, it took us out of a rhythm. Both those guys weren’t able to play like themselves.

“Jason did a decent job of coming back in the second half and putting some [shots] in, but Colin’s really important to us and we need him on the floor to be successful. We also need him to be able to battle through foul trouble and play better through adversity.”

Trey Bonham had an extremely quiet night as well with just 3 points and not a single field goal made. It was a surprise after his last two performances from this event.

The Gators were dominated on the glass 44-22. The Mountaineers finished with an impressive 12 rebounds compared to UF’s 4.

Things quickly fell apart for Florida, and West Virginia didn’t look back after going into halftime with an 8-point lead.

Were there any bright spots?

This will be a game where the UF staff and players cringe when watching the tape, but there’s no question WVU is a high quality opponent.

Although Florida shot just 35.1 percent from the field, Kyle Lofton had a season-high 17 points. He was the only Gator to have double digits in the scoring column.

UF finished with nine rejections to WVU’s five with four of those coming from Alex Fudge. Still, several of those blocks ended up back in the hands of Mountaineers players, who made a number of second-chance shots.

There’s no question it was a frustrating loss for Florida, but it definitely learned a lot about itself throughout the weekend and on Sunday.

The Gators will take the court again Wednesday to take on the FAMU Rattlers at 8 p.m. ET in Gainesville.

Stay tuned to Gators Online.

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