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GAINESVILLE, Fla. – The Todd Golden era of Florida Gators men’s basketball began with a bang after a dominating 81-45 win over Stony Brook at home on Monday night.
Scoring runs dominate both halves
Florida’s 36-point victory was the result of fast starts in both halves of play. The Gators began the first half with a 22-3 scoring run in the first nine minutes of the game, leading to a 38-22 lead at the break. Additionally, Florida kept the foot on the gas with a 22-5 run to begin the second half.
Overall, Golden praised the defensive effort of his squad for the large runs.
“I don't ever want to come in here and be like man we weren't with it defensively tonight that like kind of like a nonnegotiable for us and expectation and we did a good job that way,” he said.
The Gators finished with 4 blocks, all from Colin Castleton, and 8 total steals while forcing the 18 turnovers on the defensive end
Alex Fudge shines off the bench in Gator debut
Of Florida’s 35 bench points, the LSU transfer dropped a career-high 16 points in his first game donning the orange and blue, 11 of which came in the first half alone.
“Alex Fudge, he’s a fun story tonight simply because when he was a freshman at LSU, he had his ups and downs,” Golden said, “… once you get them through their freshman year, they understand and learn a lot, over that season and over that summer coming into that second year, and usually guys take their biggest jump from their freshman to their sophomore year.”
Seven of Fudge’s points came in a 10-0 first half scoring run by the Gators.
“So overall, Colin (Castleton) and Kyle (Lofton) are your guys, you know that they’re playing out there a lot. And then it’s really gonna be whoever’s playing well. Tonight, Alex (Fudge) was one of those guys,” Golden said.
In total, Florida outscored Stony Brook 35-13 in bench scoring.
New transfers light up the stat book
Out of the 15 total players on Golden’s first roster, seven began their collegiate careers at other schools, with four arriving this offseason, including Fudge.
Kyle Lofton, a graduate transfer from St. Bonaventure, started in his first game with the Gators, scoring 7 points, 5 rebounds and 2 assists.
Belmont transfer Will Richard finished second on the team with 14 points, 10 of which came in the second half.
VMI transfer Trey Bonham was an efficient contributor all around with 3 points, 5 rebounds and a team-high 4 assists, finishing with a plus/minus of 16.
“For me, everybody’s new, right, like obviously there’s guys that returned that were at Florida last year, but this is a brand-new program right so it’s all 15 guys that are in our program trying to learn new things on offense, learn new things on defense, just understand how important it is to rebound,” Golden said.