It was supposed to be easy.
The Gators had the chance to bounce back from their first loss of the season against Oklahoma with a buy-game against a Texas Southern Tigers team that entered at 0-7. Florida was listed as a 24-point favorite when the game tipped off, and it was undefeated in its previous 26 matchups against teams from the SWAC.
So much for that.
The Gators were stunned on their home court by the Tigers 69-54, dropping to 6-2 on the season with a Quadrant 4 loss now on the resume. The teams traded shots in the opening minutes, with Florida’s largest lead the whole night coming at 13-7. But UF’s shots stopped dropping, and TSU’s didn’t. It stretched a 10-point lead heading into the locker room, and Florida couldn’t cut into that lead at all in the second half.
The Gators were bad in basically all facets of the game, and there’s no way to look at this game as anything but puzzling in every way. Here are the takeaways from UF’s first-ever loss to a SWAC team.