Notable
* Trey Bonham led the Gators with 21 points, shooting 8-for-13 from the field and 4-for-7 from 3-point range, to mark his third 20-point game of the season.
* Colin Castleton scored 10 of his 14 points in the second half and recorded four blocked shots for the second straight game.
* Turnovers were the story, as UF committed 20 vs. Texas A&M’s 10. Along with Texas A&M’s 13 offensive rebounds, the Aggies took 61 field goal attempts compared to the Gators’ 44.
* Florida trailed 34-23 going into halftime but opened the second half on an 8-0 run over the first 90 seconds to get back within three points, 34-31.
* The Gators tied the game at 36 on a Colin Castleton free throw at the 16:21 mark, but were unable to recapture the lead at that point.
* UF briefly went ahead, 54-53, on a Castleton and-1 with 5:49 to play, then tied the game at 63 on Castleton’s steal and fastbreak layup with 1:04 remaining.
Head Coach Todd Golden
On the frustration during the game…
“We just weren’t settled. We couldn’t get settled against the pressure, and had some defensive errors in the first half that were unlike us the last month. We’ve been guarding really well, and we gave up some straight line drives and duck ins that were inexcusable defensive errors for where we are right now. We were a little surprised with the intensity and the effort that they provided for whatever reason. We addressed it and got it right at halftime and started the second half on an 8-0 run, but to be a really good team, you can’t give yourself that kind of hole in the first half.
On the turnovers…
“I thought we didn’t do a good job handling their baseline double on the post with Colin (Castleton). We talked about it in practice this past week and in walkthrough, I thought we had good plan in place to combat it, and at halftime watching the first half a little bit on the clips, we weren’t doing what we were supposed to do. We got after that a little bit and made sure we understood our responsibilities were and thought we handled that double a lot better in the second half, getting fouls and open threes off that. The turnovers, Trey (Bonham) had a really good game in terms of scoring the basketball, but we would all like to have those plays back where we had some careless turnovers.”
Graduate F Colin Castleton
On the game…
“They just played better than us overall. We turned the ball over too many times. They got better looks at certain times of the game. We talked about it, we had 20 turnovers, which is insane, I had six, Trey (Bonham) had seven, and you can’t win games when you turn the ball over that much. They just played a better game coming into the first half, and we had to crawl back and thought we played really well down the stretch, it just wasn’t enough.”
On what the team needs to improve on…
“We need to do all those things better, all the little things. Lock in on the scout, not get blown by one on one, we were getting blown by way too much. They were just super comfortable out there, and got whatever they wanted. They weren’t phased at all, and made it look easy for them. We have to take that personally, and watch it tomorrow and look at what we did horribly wrong, but yeah we can’t let them get easy layups and get to their spots. I felt like we did a horrible job of that tonight.”
Sophomore G Will Richard
On the second half success…
“We didn’t show any fight in the first half. We were upping our ball pressure and attacking them first, and we just came out with a lot more energy and were a lot more aggressive.”
On his three-point shooting tonight…
“It felt great. I’ve been in a crazy slump, so seeing the ball go through helped a lot, so just have to keep doing that.”
