Colin Castleton and the Gators had no answers for Texas Southern, especially in the paint, where the Tigers scored 42 of their points in a 69-54 win Monday night.
Texas Southern Routs UF
Monday, December 6, 2021 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The best thing the Florida Gators can possibly take from Monday night's crippling home loss to previously winless Texas Southern (if that even sounds possible) is the fact they were completely, abjectly and utterly outplayed by a band of inspired, road-weary dudes from the Southwestern Athletic Conference who are still five weeks from playing their first home game of the season.
That's it. In other words, this one not only hurt, but needs to sting for a little while.
And it will.
The Tigers came to Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center with seven straight losses, all on the road, four to high-major programs. They left with a convincing 69-54 victory, having shot 54.4 percent for the game, dominated the glass with double the home team's rebounds, and without remotely being threatened during the second half.
"That is not who this team is, that is not who this program is," a dejected UF coach Mike White said afterward. "We were thoroughly outplayed, out-coached, out-everythinged."
Yeah, that about summed it up.
A pair of reserves, guard PJ Henry (transfer from Hartford) and forward Jordon Karl Nicholas (transfer from Stephen F. Austin) combined to score 30 points and hit 14 of 21 shots, with Nicholas making all seven of his field-goal attempts to go with four rebounds. Forward John Walker III (formerly of Texas A&M) had 13 points, seven rebounds and seven assists, while forward Brison Gresham (Houston) had eight points and 13 rebounds. Together, they accounted for four of their team's 11 transfers. They were all better than UF's more heralded transfers on this night.
The Gators (6-2), losers of two straight, didn't have to do a lot of soul searching to try and figure out what happened.
"Effort," senior forward Colin Castleton said, adding that Sunday's all-around poor practice bled into the game-day performance day. "We didn't play as hard as we should have. We just have to do a better a job. We let everybody down. We let ourselves down,"
Added grad-transfer guard Brandon McKissic. "They played harder. That's what we were supposed to do."
McKissic, with 15 points, and Castleton, with 12 points and five rebounds, were the lone Gators in double figues on a night the team shot just 37.0 percent from the floor and made only five of 24 from the 3-point line (.208). Two of UF's top three scorers, fifth-year senior point guard Tyree Appleby and senior Myreon Jones, went a combined 2-for-15 from the floor, including 0-for-10 from the arc. For the fifth straight game, Florida failed to tally more assists than turnovers (10 of each), with Appleby, the team's floor leader, finishing with no assists and four turnovers.
Those numbers would have been difficult to overcome on any night against any opponent, but what should irk the coaches and players most the next couple days is the utter manner in which the team was manhandled on the glass and surrendered easy buckets in the paint.
Graduate guard Brandon McKissic led the Gators with a season-high 15 points.
Texas Southern (1-7) — already with losses at Oregon, St. Mary's, Washington, Air Force, North Carolina State, Brigham Young and, most recently, by 27 at Louisiana Tech five days ago — grabbed 46 rebounds to UF's 23 and scored 42 points in the paint to UF's 26.
If they kept statistics for loose balls and hustle plays, the Tigers would have dominated that column, as well.
"We were a step behind for 40 minutes," White said.
Yeah, pretty much.
The Gators led for less than eight minutes and never after the 11:28 mark of the first half. They trailed by 10 at the break and by 20 with four minutes to play. All this against a UF defense that came into the game ranked 14th in the country in overall efficiency. TSU, though, got wide-open back-door and slip layups all night long, plus offensive rebounds and stick backs that, at times, were uncontested.
"I feel like we had more energy than they did," Nicholas said. "But that had nothing to do with them and everything to do with us."
Afterward, the Tigers doused Coach Johnny Jones with all things liquid in the victorious locker room, making for a moment as joyous as the team's SWAC Tournament title last season and First Four victory in the NCAA Tournament.
The game marked UF's first loss to a SWAC team in 27 tries.
"It's huge for the program and our school," said Jones, who coached LSU from 2011-16. "At the end of the day, because we know how difficult it is, when you have setbacks like we've had, you have an opportunity to either splinter or come together. These guys have done a tremendous job of staying the course and coming together."
Which begs the question: What will the Gators do now?
A week ago, they headed to Oklahoma unbeaten, ranked 14th in the nation and riding a 6-0 start highlighted by that magical Appleby buzzer-beater to defeat Ohio State, which last Tuesday night shocked top-ranked Duke. That self-proclaimed "gritty, grimy, blue-collar" version of the Gators has gone AWOL.
"Things that happened in this game are things that have been going on a while now," McKissic said. "We have to clean them up."
Quickly. The Gators will have Tuesday to use a one-day prep for a quick-turn game Wednesday night at home against North Florida. In a way, that's a good thing. They won't have to stew on this one for long before putting it in the year rearview.
But they probably need to. It was that humbling. It was that bad.
"It starts with me," White said, waving off any notion his team rolled into this game overlooking the opponent. "This game was really, really important. We needed to win this game and we needed to grow tonight. I'm looking forward to a lengthy conversation with our team as a whole [Tuesday]."