GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Worry not, Florida fans. KeVaughn Allen still has a basketball pulse. 

The UF senior shooting guard didn't score in Tuesday's debacle of a defeat in the season opener at Florida State, but Allen shot out of the chute Friday night, hitting his team's first three field goals and playing passing lanes with aplomb on defense on his way to game highs of 14 points and five steals to lead the Gators past Charleston Southern 76-46 in their home opener at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center. 

"I just went out there and played hard," Allen said. "I feel like we needed to play much harder than we did against Florida State, and that's what we tried to do." 

The overall product was far more pleasing than the woodshed whipping the Gators (1-1) took in Tallahassee, a 21-point loss that felt (and could have been) more like 40. In that game, Allen took four shots in 23 minutes and went scoreless for just the fifth time in his career. Against Charleston Southern (1-1), Allen put up his team's first shot of the game — a beauty of a step-back jumper that swished — and bagged the Gators' first three baskets. Barely four minutes in, with UF pressuring the in-bound after a made free throw, Allen intercepted the pass-in and, without taking a dribble, wrapped a behind-the-back bounce pass to Deaundrae Ballard for a layup, foul and three-point play. 

"KeVaughn Allen set the tone for us from the tip. He was our best player. He was terrific," Florida coach Mike White said. "He played with effort offensively and got himself going defensively, Hopefully, that's something he can hang his hat on." 

With the exception of a few really bad early possessions in the second half, the Gators were OK on defense at Florida State, despite what the final score (81-60) might indicate. What they did well carried over against the overmatched Buccaneers, out of the Big South Conference, who shot just 25.5 percent overall, hit only five of 28 attempts from the 3-point line (17.9 percent) and had 19 turnovers that Florida converted to 24 points.
 
"After I saw the Florida State game the other night, I knew this would be a very hard time to play a Mike White team," Charleston Southern coach Barclay Radebaugh said. "They were an angry team."

Certainly, a more focused one. 

"It wasn't as motivating as it was humbling," Florida fourth-year junior forward Keith Stone of his team's lopsided loss to its cross-state rival. "We found out we're not as good as we think we are."

They were better this time, especially Allen, with his three field goals and three steals less than four minutes in. The Gators, though, couldn't buy a 3-pointer and led by only six, at 21-15, with under seven minutes to play in the first half. When CSU backup guard Dontrelle Shuler made an old-time 3-point play at the 2:55 mark Florida's lead was 30-20. Manageable, in other words, for the visitors. 

The Bucs' next field goal came from guard Chris Keeling (18 points, 5 points) with 10:37 to play in the game. By that time, the Gators were up 53-26, thanks to defense that forced a drought of 19 straight missed CSU shots and more than 11 minutes, bridging the two halves, without surrendering a field goal. 

"We raised things up five notches on defense," Ballard said. 

Added freshman point guard Andrew Nembhard: "Coach challenged us to be more mature as a group, to be less selfish and work as a team to move toward our overall goals of just winning games." 

This was the first. 

Allen finished 6-for-11 from the floor and along the way became the 30th player in school history to surpass 1,300 points in his career. Ballard added 12 points and six rebounds off the bench, while Nembhard stuffed his stat line with seven points, seven rebounds, six assists (just one turnover) and two steals over a team-high 30 minutes. UF shot 46.4 percent as a team, despite making just eight of 28 shots from the 3-point line. 

"We did a better job of playing together and playing off each other," Allen said. 

In doing so, White saw a big difference in what he witnessed 72 hours earlier. 

"Our culture was where it's supposed to be," White said. "Not where it was the other night."