Exactech Arena at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center | Gainesville, Fla.
Box Score<https://floridagators.com/documents/2022/11/14/FAUvsUF.PDF> | Season Stats<https://floridagators.com/documents/2022/11/7/2022-23_UFstats.pdf>
Records: Florida: 2-1 | Florida Atlantic 2-1
Next up: at Florida State, Friday, 8 p.m., ACC Network
Notable
* Colin Castleton posted 30 points, 12 rebounds and five blocked shots, but the Gators could not overcome FAU’s 13-for-24 night from the 3-point line.
* On the heels of Friday’s 33-point outing, Castleton becomes the first Gator since Anthony Roberson to post consecutive 30-point games (Roberson: 34 at Auburn, 1/12/05; 30 at Vanderbilt, 1/15/05).
* Castleton is just the sixth different power-conference player since the 1996-97 season to tally a 30-point, 12-rebound five-block performance and the lone SEC player.
* Justin Champagnie (Pitt, 1/19/21 vs. Duke)
* Udoka Azubuike (Kansas, 3/4/20 vs. TCU)
* K.J. McDaniels (Clemson, 2 times)
* Michael Sweetney (Georgetown, 5 times)
* David Harrison (Colorado, 11/24/02 vs. Stetson)
* Kyle Lofton and Will Richard chipped in 14 points each, while Kowacie Reeves added 11.
Head Coach Todd Golden
On the bench…
“I don’t think our bench played great scoring the ball. [Alex] Fudge played 25 minutes, Riley [Kugel] played 10. Yeah, we tightened up a little, but Colin [Castleton] played pretty well. I thought Kyle [Lofton] played pretty well. Their bench, they played a guy tonight who hadn’t played all year off the bench, who is probably their best player, their best scorer and he had 20. I wouldn’t make too much out the bench scoring. We didn’t play as well off the bench as we needed to, but I don’t think that was the reason as to why we didn’t win.”
On three-point defense…
“From my early observation, them going 13-24 from three was the difference in the game. We did a pretty good job at minimizing the amount of threes they took, 24 out of 69 is about 37%, something like that, against a team that is lethal from behind the arc. But again, the fact that they were so efficient, 54%, we just got bombed out tonight. A lot of it was in transition. I thought they did a really good job locating shooters in transition. The way they play, it’s a difficult guard. They play about four guards usually. Johnell Davis is, I would call, kind of like a hybrid wing-guard. He can handle it. He really shoots it well as you guys saw tonight. So, transition was an area where we got bopped pretty good. I thought our endline, out of bounds defense wasn’t great either. We laid on a lot of screens tonight, we weren’t able to fight over, and make these guys curl going towards the basket which was kind of the game plan. They were 16-47 from two, they weren’t really efficient shooting twos. In a game like tonight, we talked about it with the team at halftime, they bombed us in the first half 8-13 from three, we said, ‘we have to limit them to seven or less attempts in the second half ‘and if we do that, I thought we would win. Well, they got 11 up, they made five more of them and we lost by two.”
On Colin Castleton…
“He was playing off of Kyle [Lofton] a lot. I thought Kyle did a really good job in our ball screens. Teams have started trying to weak us in the middle of the floor, meaning they are trying to keep Kyle to his left hand, which allows Colin to kind of slip into that little, short role possession and Kyle is elite at finding him. Now Colin is being able to drive a short close out against a big. That’s an advantage we’d take any day of the week. So, if we’re able to find him the ball in that spot, yeah, we’re going to take that and let him go find it and make a play. That was kind of what we were doing to kind of capture that lead. We went away from it a little bit, took some quick shots trying to bury them and we just missed them and allowed them to get out. They hit some big threes and that was where the momentum swung.”
Grad G Kyle Lofton
On FAU being able to get good looks….
“I just think our transition defense was bad. They were getting out rebounding, and getting out running. We had trouble finding guys, then they’d swing it one more or set a back screen, we just wasn’t together or talking today .”
On difficulty of matchup with FAU….
“It wasn’t really a tough matchup, we just got to be better at transition defense. I think our half-court defense was pretty solid, but they got a couple ones in transition, dunks, open threes, so we got to get better on that.”
5th Year F Colin Castleton
On ability to correct defensive mistakes…
“Very correctable, I feel like there’s just things we needed to focus on coming in a little bit more than we did. Like the guys, Coach Golden gave us a great gameplan, told us don’t let them shoot threes, don’t let them get it off when their big set really good screens and they have good plays for their two guards who shoot the ball really well. We just didn’t execute that, and that’s something we can correct with film. We’re going to watch it tomorrow and get better at the areas we need to improve on.”
On belief in the ability to rally late…
“You always got to believe you can win a game. We put ourselves in a position late, but they just hit timely shots. We dug ourselves a hole after we went up 10 and that was something that Coach Golden talked to us about. We were up 10 in the second half and we let them go on a run. We played horrible transition defense. We just got to come together better when it comes to holding a lead and being able to finish off a game cause that’s something we did poorly tonight.”
