GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Todd Golden is a lanky 6-foot-4, but the Florida coach was literally swallowed up by his entire team late Tuesday night following the Gators’ 108-74 stoning of Mississippi State. 
 
The win was the Gators’ 10^th in a row, but more importantly officially checked their box as outright 2026 Southeastern Conference champions. That they did it in such buzz-saw fashion – ripping a second consecutive league foe by 34 points – was both impressive and exhilarating for the team and adoring crowd, but handing Golden his 100^th victory at UF, then manhandling him with a group hug and lift off the floor, made for yet another special post-game celebration.
 
“They were messing with my hair a little too much” joked Golden, who reached 100 wins in 139 games, faster than any coach in UF history, beating the previous mark of 154 set by Hall-of-Famer Billy Donovan (1996-2001). “We have really good relationships with our players. What’s unique is we get after them pretty good, coach them hard, but our guys know we care about them. It means a lot they were so excited for that milestone for me, but it’s really more of a program milestone than anything else.”
 
With so many more potential milestones to chase. 
 

Florida is on an ABSOLUTE TEAR 🔥🐊

The Gators are the first team to score 105+ points and win by 30+ in back-to-back SEC games since Kentucky in 1971 🤯@GatorsMBK beat Arkansas 111–77 and Mississippi State 108–74.

(Stat via @JaredBerson) pic.twitter.com/EaNQuOmmWK

— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) March 4, 2026

Forward Alex Condon poured in 26 points, connecting on 12 of 19 from the floor, to go with seven rebounds, but this was an all-encompassing stat night for everyone in the white uniforms. Everybody played. Six UF players reached double-figure scoring. The Gators (24-6, 15-2) shot 54.9% for the game, while defending at 45%, scored 70 points in the paint, rang up 25 assists to just five turnovers, doubled up the Bulldogs on the glass, 53-26, and scored 61 points in the second half. 
 
Three days after disemboweling No. 20 Arkansas, 111-77, UF put together consecutive 100-point games in SEC play for the first time since 1975. And both those games 51 years ago went into overtime.
 
Oh, and they did it all with their best player, Thomas Haugh, sidelined with a lower body injury due to precautionary reasons. Haugh, the team’s scoring leader and SEC Player of the Year candidate, is expected to be ready for the regular-season finale Saturday at Kentucky.  
 
“Multiple guys stepped up and played really, really well,” Golden said. “Just the collective effort in Tommy’s absence is what I was most proud of.”
 
Guard Xaivian Lee and center Micah Handlogten rose to their “Senior Night” occasions with special performances. Lee, the Princeton transfer, finished with 19 points, five rebounds, six assists, four steals and just one turnover. Handlogten, the beloved 7-foot-1 backup center, stepped in for Haugh for his first start in nearly two years and had 10 points, nine rebounds (eight on the offensive end), three assists and a block. 
 
Center Rueben Chinyelu posted his league-high and school-record 18^th double-double of the season with 11 points, 16 boards and three blocks. Point guard Boogie Fland and backup guard Urban Klavzar each threw in 10 points. 

The Gators, though, needed nearly half the first period to settle into a rhythm minus Haugh. 
 
“When you start with me at the ‘4’ and Condo at the ‘3’ … we’d never done that, [not] even in practice. Ever,” Handlogten said. “Definitely took some adjustments and I feel like that’s why we got off to a little bit of a slow start.”
 
The Bulldogs took advantage, hitting 10 of their first 12 field-goal attempts and led 24-14 approaching the 11-minute mark. 
 
“We threw a punch. It landed,” Mississippi State coach Chris Jans said. “I was excited with the way we were playing.”
 
Not for long. 

With 11:28 to go, Fland made one of two free throws. Then came a defensive stop that turned into a transition layup for UF backup guard Isaiah Brown (9 points, 4 rebounds). About that time, freshman wing CJ Ingram checked in, marking his first high-end SEC minutes since early in the league season. All Ingram did was bang back-to-back 3-pointers to close the Gators within a point and force Jans to take a timeout to stop a 9-0 run. 
 
“Great feeling,” Ingram said of his contributions (8 points, 2 rebounds, 3 assists).
 
Out of the stoppage, the Gators ripped off another nine consecutive points – for a SEC-high 18-0 run – that pushed the home team in front by eight. By halftime, the lead was a dozen, 47-35, after hitting 12 of the last 18 shots, while State was missing 15 of its last 20.
 
While in the locker room, the Gators actually wrapped up the unfettered conference title due to Georgia beating second-place and 16^th-ranked Alabama. UF, though, didn’t want to claim the crown that way. And it showed. 
 
In the second half, tTe lead was 15 before the first media timeout; 23 with 10 minutes to go; 30 with four to play and swelled to as many as 37. And that was before junior walk-on Cooper Josefsberg hit his first career field goal; a 3-pointer, of course. 
 
What a way to exit the final home game of what – again – is shaping like a potentially special season. 
 
“Obviously, it’s hard to top [the Arkansas win], but I just felt like the vibes were really good and I feel like we all played really well,” Lee said. “From the entire game to the last shot, all of it felt like a nice close to our playing in the O’Dome.”

When the final horn sounded, Florida had its ninth win of the 10-game streak by double figures (the one outlier being a nine-point win over Kentucky), with the average margin of victory during the run at a whopping 23.2 points. 
 
At center court, UF athletic director Scott Stricklin presented Golden with a game ball, complete with the number “100” emblazoned it, as the crowd and team rejoiced. Especially the team.
 
All that was left was muddling through Golden’s gelled-up hair. 
 
“I’m proud of the organization that we have and what we’re doing,” Golden said. “And we don’t plan on stopping anytime soon.”
 
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.