LSU needed a win at home against Florida ahead of a brutal stretch of SEC contests, but foul trouble and poor offensive play doomed the Tigers once again as the Gators held on to win 67-56 at the Pete Maravich Assembly Center.
With the loss, LSU drops to 12-4 on the season and is just 1-3 to start SEC play.
The Tigers jumped out to an early 7-0 lead, but in spite of poor shooting from the Gators, they couldn’t separate in the first half. They took a three-point lead to the locker room, but nothing went right in the second half.
LSU shot just 29%, while UF connected on 55% of its shots. The Tigers had a four-plus minute scoreless stretch in the final 10 minutes. Florida was just 5 of 25 from three for the game, but LSU was even worse from behind the arc at 5 of 28.
That’s not to even mention the mistakes, of which there were plenty. The Tigers had 16 turnovers which resulted in 23 points for Florida. Their 21 fouls gave the Gators 32 attempts and 24 points from the line, and they spent much of the final minutes in the double bonus.
[autotag]KJ Williams[/autotag] scored 23 points on 8 of 20 shooting with seven rebounds, but he also allowed 18 points to UF’s Colin Castleton. No one else found much success offensively. [autotag]Derek Fountain[/autotag] — who fouled out — scored eight points, as did [autotag]Adam Miller[/autotag], who went just 2 of 12 from the field and 1 of 8 from three.
The road doesn’t get any easier from here for LSU, which faces four ranked teams in Alabama, Auburn, Tennessee and Arkansas in its upcoming contests.
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