GAINESVILLE, Fla. — From his first wave of offseason workouts, to summer practices, into the preseason and the run-up of the 2022-23 college basketball campaign and months into it, Florida coach Todd Golden — like every coach in the country — talked about the NCAA Tournament being the program's goal. Any realistic hopes of achieving that objective ended with the February injury to Colin Castleton and was shut down officially with last week's second-round exit from the Southeastern Conference Tournament. 

Now all the Gators had was what they could make of a bid to that other tournament. 

"You have a goal of making the NCAA Tournament for so long. It's something you're focusing on and talking about and, obviously, when that doesn't happen you have to find a way to rally," a subdued Golden said Wednesday night after the Gators' season ended with a thud, and at home, against Central Florida in the National Invitational Tournament. "The way we discussed it, talked to our team about it, any opportunity you get to play in the postseason you can't take it for granted." 

No doubt, a near exact message was put to UCF's players as they prepped for their trip to the state's flagship school. The Knights definitely did not take it for granted. In fact, they basically took whatever they wanted in a strikingly one-sided 67-49 victory at mostly cavernous Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center. For the Gators, the loss not only ended Golden's first season, but guaranteed the first losing record for the program since 2014-15 (and just the second this century). 

Senior guard C.J. Kelly led all scorers with 21 points, but the night's show-stopper was freshman forward Taylor Hendricks, who looked every bit the part of his projected 2023 NBA first-round draft projection in hitting nine of 13 shots on his 17 points, plus eight rebounds, two steals and a couple blocks. Together, Hendricks and Kelly combined to make 17 of their 24 field-goal tries, which set the tone for a UCF offense that hit nearly 53 percent for the game and scored 40 points in the paint. 

Florida (16-17), meanwhile, matched its porous defense with a shooting effort of just 32 percent for the game, including 4-for-24 from the 3-point line (16.7 percent). Freshman guard Riley Kugel led the Gators with 13 points, reaching double-figure scoring for a 10th consecutive game, but no other teammate managed more than six points, as UF tallied its lowest point total since a 64-49 loss to eighth-ranked Michigan in second-round play of the 2019 NCAA Tournament at Dallas. 

"Energy," sophomore guard Will Richard said, meaning the lack thereof, when asked about the team's mostly listless performance. "Everybody has to be locked in and come out ready to play and I just felt like we didn't have it tonight."

The Knights (19-14) did and afterward definitely basked in just the second victory over the Gators in 12 all-time meetings. 

"I'm new here," said Kelly, who transferred in from Massachusetts. "But I hear they've been ducking us." Whatever the circumstances had that prevented the teams (and three different UF coaching staffs) from playing since 2012 can be debated, but for the Gators there was no hiding from what the Knights unleashed after the first three minutes of the game. UF jumped to a quick 9-2 lead, but then the O'Dome roof caved in, as UCF went on a 20-3 run and built a 12-point lead, thanks in great part to 13 first-half turnovers by the Gators that led to 15 points the other way. Five of those giveaways came from fifth-year senior point guard Kyle Lofton in an uncharacteristic display, considering five was the most Lofton had in any game all season (just once) and his next-highest turnover game was just three (three times). 

"Our ball security was really bad," Golden said of the opening half. "I thought that was really what set us back in a big way."

The Knights went to the locker room up 35-26, with Henderson scoring 13 points and his team at 55.6 percent for the period compared to the Gators at just 32.1 against aggressive UCF ball-screen coverage that never let Florida ball-handlers get comfortable on the perimeter.

The second half was a near-mirror image of the first, with UCF at 50 percent to UF's 32. The Knights also out-worked the Gators on the glass 39-29 for the game.

"Not much to it," said Kugel, who managed to hit just four of his 12 shots and only one of six from inside the 3-point line. "We just got out-competed." 

In turn, out-performed. UF's starters managed only 26 points (half from Kugel), with seldom-used backups Denzel Aberdeen and Niels Lane coming off the bench to net second-high scoring honors (along with fifth-year senior Myreon Jones in his final game) at six points a piece. 

The Gators got as close as seven early in the second half, but never closer and trailed by 24 with less than two minutes to play. 

It's been said the NIT stands for the "Not-In Tournament." Playing in it is one thing. Excelling in it is another.

The Knights played like it meant something. Something more.

"It's not OK," Golden said of his team's relative (and rare) lack of fight, especially given how the Gators had battled most of the season; especially since the loss of Castleton in February. "Tonight we weren't what we needed to be, but if you look at the whole body of work [on the season] I think it's something we can build on."

For next season, that is. The journey to '23-24 officially is underway.