{"id":123532,"date":"2026-01-19T08:22:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:22:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/123532\/"},"modified":"2026-01-19T08:22:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-19T08:22:07","slug":"streaks-favor-no-19-florida-in-home-game-vs-lsu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/123532\/","title":{"rendered":"Streaks favor No. 19 Florida in home game vs. LSU"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defending national champion Florida<\/a> continues to round into form, which presents a challenge for an LSU<\/a> team trying to regain its footing.<\/p>\n

The longtime rivals resume Southeastern Conference play on Tuesday night when No. 19 Florida hosts LSU in Gainesville, Fla. The Gators (13-5, 4-1 SEC) boast a 15-game home-court winning streak dating back to January 2025, including an 8-0 mark this season.<\/p>\n

Florida is riding a four-game win streak following an impressive effort against then-No. 10 Vanderbilt on Saturday.<\/p>\n

The Gators also have had the upper hand recently in the series with LSU, winning four straight as well as 10 of the last 13 going back to 2016-17.<\/p>\n

Florida is tied atop the conference regular-season standings with Texas A&M, thanks in part to its back-and-forth, 98-94 victory over Vanderbilt in Nashville, Tenn. Florida largely benefited from a 22-8 advantage in second-chance points.<\/p>\n

Junior center Rueben Chinyelu’s stellar performance included a career-high 20 points (7-of-9 shooting from the field) and 10 rebounds (five offensive) for his 10th double-double this season.<\/p>\n

Princeton transfer Xaivian Lee added 20 points and was among five double-figure scorers for Florida, which has responded favorably to a two-point loss at Missouri on Jan. 3 with the four consecutive wins, all in conference.<\/p>\n

“We’ve been criticized a lot this year for our offense and our shooting,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “But I think, you know, (seven of the last eight games) we’ve scored over 90 points. I think we’re a top-10 team analytically now on KenPom, so we’ve made a big jump that way, and for us as we continue on in SEC play, we need to be really good on both sides of the ball if we want a chance to win this league.”<\/p>\n

Facing a possible 0-5 start in SEC play, LSU got a much-needed win on Saturday. The Tigers built a 10-point halftime lead against visiting Missouri en route to a 78-70 victory as fifth-year senior forward Marquel Sutton (season-high 26 points) and 6-foot-6 senior guard Max Mackinnon combined for 46 points.<\/p>\n

LSU (13-5, 1-4) breezed to a 12-1 start in nonconference play, but losses to Texas A&M, South Carolina, then-No. 11 Vanderbilt and Kentucky followed. Starting point guard Dedan Thomas Jr., a UNLV transfer averaging a team-high 16.2 points and 7.1 assists per game, sustained a lower leg injury and missed those games as well against Missouri.<\/p>\n

A 75-74 home setback to Kentucky was particularly deflating. Leading by one with 1.6 seconds left, LSU watched Malachi Moreno hit a 17-foot buzzer-beater for the Wildcats after catching a pass that traveled three-quarters of the length of the court.<\/p>\n

The Tigers, however, were resilient against Missouri, on a day when LSU celebrated the 40th anniversary of coach Dale Brown’s 1986 Final Four squad.<\/p>\n

“I think we showed maturity, being an older group,” said Mackinnon, a transfer from the University of Portland. “It’s great to get the win, and we’re going to keep the momentum going into Florida.”<\/p>\n

The Tigers struggled with turnovers in Thomas’ absence but committed only seven in their first conference win. LSU’s three-point defense also proved key as Missouri went just 6 of 18 from deep. Florida, by comparison, is shooting 28.4% from behind the arc through 18 games.<\/p>\n

“Now we gotta keep building,” LSU coach Matt McMahon said. “We gotta get a lot better and keep improving as we go hit the road here in league play now.”<\/p>\n

–Field Level Media<\/p>\n

\n Copyright 2026 STATS LLC and Field Level Media. Any commercial use or distribution without the express written consent of STATS LLC and Field Level Media is strictly prohibited.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defending national champion Florida continues to round into form, which presents a challenge for an LSU team trying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":108640,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[8294,28,2530,30,29,4657],"class_list":{"0":"post-123532","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-florida","8":"tag-college-basketball","9":"tag-florida","10":"tag-florida-gators","11":"tag-florida-headlines","12":"tag-florida-news","13":"tag-lsu-tigers"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123532","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123532"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123532\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123532"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123532"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123532"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}