No. 16 Florida vs. LSU

 
* When: Tuesday, 7 p.m. (ET)
* Where: Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center / Gainesville, Fla.
* Records: Florida (13-5, 4-1) / LSU (13-5, 1-4)
* Series/Last meeting: LSU leads 66-54. UF has won four straight (and six of the last seven), mostly recently defeating the Tigers 79-65 on Feb. 22, 2025 at Baton Rouge. With starting forward Alex Condon sidelined by an ankle injury and the senior backcourt tandem of Walter Clayton Jr. and Alijah Martin stat-ing below their per-game averages, sophomore center Rueben Chinyelu had his best all-around game of the season, pouring in a career-high 19 points to go with 13 rebounds and a two blocks. Sophomore forward Thomas Haugh, making his third consecutive start in Condon’s place, scored 13 of his 16 points after halftime and also had 10 boards and three assists. The Gators blew a 14-point lead by allowing the Tigers to reel off a 22-2 run over the final six minutes of the first half. LSU’s led by eight in the second half before UF stormed back with an 18-4 run behind Chinyelu, Haugh and solid backup guard play from Denzel Aberdeen (11 points). The Gators shot 55% in the second half and defended the Tigers at 39%. 
* TV: ESPN2 (Roy Philpott & Jon Crispin)
* Radio: Gator Sports Network from LEARFIELD / Stations list
  (with Sean Kelley, Brian Hogan and Steve Egan) 
* Ticket info

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Projected Starters

 

Florida	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Alex Condon	F	6-11 / 230	Junior	14.4 pts / 8.3 reb / 3.5 ast
Rueben Chinyelu	C	6-10 / 255	Junior	11.8 pts / 10.7 reb
Thomas Haugh	F	6-9 / 215	Junior	17.4 pts / 6.7 reb
Xaivian Lee	G	6-4 / 185	Senior	11.7 pts / 4.3 reb
Boogie Fland	G	6-3 / 185	Sophomore	11.5 pts / 2.4 reb / 3.5 ast

LSU	Position	Height / Weight	Class	Statistics
Marquel Sutton	F	6-9 / 225	Senior	13.8 pts / 8.5 reb
Mike Nwoko	F	6-10 / 261	Junior	13.9 pts / 5.9 reb
Max Mackinnon	G	6-6 / 195	Senior	14.8 pts / 2.7 reb / 2.4 ast
Pablo Tamba	G	6-7 / 206	Senior	7.2 pts / 7.4 reb
Rashad King	G	6-6 / 217	Senior	4.1 pts / 1.3 reb

The Setup

No. 16 Florida and LSU meet in a Southeastern Conference game between one team at the top of the league standings and one at the bottom. … The Gators are on a four-game winning streak and coming off a 98-94 upset win Saturday at 10th-ranked Vanderbilt that stands among the program’s biggest road victories in recent memory. The Tigers opened the conference season with four losses, but broke through Saturday with a 78-70 home defeat of Missouri. … UF is tied atop the SEC standings alongside Texas A&M, with seven teams one game back. LSU is tied with Oklahoma and South Carolina at the bottom of the conference. … Each of the Gators’ four wins during their streak (for now) represent Quadrant 1 victories, per the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) that will seed the NCAA Tournament. UF is 5-5 in Q1s. LSU, which is a top 50 NET team for now, is 1-4 in Q1s. … Florida has won 15 consecutive home games, dating to the 2025 SEC opener, and is 37-2 over the last three seasons at the O’Dome. 

Tale of the Tape

Florida	Statistics	LSU
86.5	Scoring	84.6
.466	Field-goal percentage	.495
.284	3-point percentage	.343
72.7	Scoring defense	72.5
.415	Field-goal percentage defense	.413
.336	3-point percentage defense	.343
9th	KenPom.com overall ranking	44th
11th	KenPom.com offensive efficiency	33rd
11th	KenPom.com defensive efficiency	80th
58th	KenPom.com adjusted tempo	197th
15th	NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) ranking	49th
8th	Overall strength of schedule ranking	104th

The Breakdown 

About the Gators: Those four consecutive Q1 victories (Georgia and Tennessee at home; Oklahoma and Vandy on the road) not only have flipped the Florida narrative, but the SEC standings and national conversation, relative to the Gators’ chances to win the league and get a high seed in the postseason. They’re playing like a top-10 team, with their size and rebounding able to mask deficiencies on the perimeter; specifically, 3-point shooting, which (though inching upward) still ranks 351st in the nation and last among 79 power conference teams. … Center Rueben Chinyelu had his SEC-best 10th double-double (and third straight) at Nashville, with the Gators moving to 10-0 when he doubles in both categories. Chinyelu is shooting 64.4 from 2-point area, and after going 6-for-6 from the free-throw line at Vandy has raised his free-throw percentage by 12 points since last year to 70.5. He is the No. 8 defensive rebounder nationally at 28.3%, No. 16 offensive rebounder at 17.0 and playing as well as any post player in the country. … Thomas Haugh made some huge baskets during the win at Nashville, finishing with 18 points and eight boards. He hit two 3-pointers and is now at 35.1% on the season. … A lot of attention (probably too much) has been put to Alex Condon’s 3-point shooting, which now sits at 16.2% overall, including 2-for-13 in SEC play. He swished his first Saturday, then air-balled two more in the first half (much to the delight of the Vandy student section), after which he confined his shots to the 2-point area, where he’s making 62.5% on the season. Condon’s two clutch free throws with 6.1 seconds remaining clinched the win. … Senior guard Xaivian Lee hit a trio of 3-balls against the Commodores – one really big one, of course – but still sits at just 26.1 from the arc. Lee, though, is a very guard-friendly 55.8 from 2. Same goes for Boogie Fland, who is just 21.1 from distance, but has his mid-range game going well enough to put him at 55.8% inside the 3-point line. Fland was fairly quiet at Vandy, with seven points and three assists, but the UF offense was sensational at his direction and his defense on Vandy standout guard Tyler Tanner was magnificent. … Sophomore backup guard Isaiah Brown (4.1 ppg, 2.5 rpg) will never forget his 20^th birthday, after scoring a career-high 14 points, with a couple 3s and a jaw-dropping put-back slam dunk over the most pivotal 20 minutes of his career.

About the Tigers: It’s their fourth season under Matt McMahon, who famously handed Golden his final loss at San Francisco – an overtime defeat in first-round play of the 2023 NCAA Tournament at Indianapolis – mere hours before Golden accepted the UF job. McMahon is 58-58 with the Tigers, including 15-44 in conference play. … The Tigers went 12-1 against a relatively soft non-league slate, with their lone loss coming against Texas Tech by 24 points. They did have a solid win against SMU at New Orleans. LSU opened the SEC schedule with losses at A&M and Vandy, as well home to South Carolina and thrn Kentucky six days ago on a heart-breaking, buzzer-beater before breaking through Saturday against the same Missouri team that handed UF its only loss of the league season. In that one, the Tigers never trailed, scoring the game’s first 10 points, and out-played Mizzou on the glass, something the Gators uncharacteristically weren’t able to do. … The Tigers have decent metrics – top 35 in both 2-point field-goal offense and defense – just not enough quality wins to show for it. They’ve had tough luck on the injury front, losing forward Jalen Reed (9.5 ppg, 5.7 rpg) in November to a season-ending Achilles rupture and point guard Dedan Thomas (16.2 ppg, 7.1 apg) to a foot injury just before the start to SEC play. Thomas, the transfer from UNLV, had three games of double-digit assists, is reportedly close to returning. … Australian guard Max Mackinnon, with stops at Elon and Portland, is an elite 3-point shooter (42.5%); better outside the arc than in, in fact (40.4). His free throws are nearly automatic (94.4%). … Mike Nwoko was the starting center at Mississippi State last season. He’s just shy of 70% from 2 and is a national top-60 offensive rebounder. Nwoko will challenge the Gators inside. … Forward Marquel Sutton, who poured in 26 in the Missouri win, shoots 58.6 inside 2 and is another very good rebounder. … Guard Pablo Tamba is a 70% 2-point scorer and top-10 player nationally in effective field-goal percentage. He and Jalen Reece (4.1 ppg, 2.5 apg), an Orlando product, have taken on most of the point guard duties with Thomas sidelined. 

 

Numbers of Note 

* 4 — Where Chinyelu’s current average of 10.7 rebounds per game would rank on UF’s all-time single season list, behind only Bob Smyth (12.7 in 1975-76) and Chip Williams (12.1 in ’72-73 and 11.1 in ’73-74). 

* 8 — College basketball teams, including Florida, that rate in KenPom’s top 20 in both offensive and defensive efficiency. Since the advent of the KenPom system for the 1996-97 season, only two teams have won national championships (UConn in 2014 and Baylor in ’21) that did not fit in that double top 20 criteria. Three weeks ago, the Gators sat in the mid-30s in offense. 

* 21 — Victories for Golden over Associated Press ranked opponents, which moved him past Mike White and now ranks second all-time among Florida coaches. Billy Donovan, with 64 ranked wins over his 19 seasons, still sits atop the list, but Golden’s 21-15 record against ranked foes is the only winning mark in program history.  

 

Bottom Line

The Gators are entering a very favorable stretch of their schedule, with three of the next four games at home, with three of those games against opponents already with three losses in conference play. Need to take advantage. 

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.