TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Thomas Haugh had 19 points and 10 rebounds to lead No. 1 Florida to a 77-67 win over No. 14 Miami on Monday night in the season opener for both programs.<\/p>\n
Rueben Chinyelu added six points and 14 rebounds for the Gators, who left Benchmark International Arena with a loss the last time they played there to Iowa in the second round of the NCAA Tournament on March 22.<\/p>\n
Acaden Lewis, a transfer from Villanova, had 24 in his first game for the Hurricanes.<\/p>\n
Haugh, the preseason Southeastern Conference Player of the Year who would have likely been a lottery pick had he left for the NBA, was dominant from start to finish. The 6-foot-9 senior chipped in five offensive boards, four assists, two steals and a block. He didn\u2019t commit a turnover and hit 4 of 8 from 3-point range.<\/p>\n
Miami kept within striking distance, scoring the first eight points of the second half. The Hurricanes sliced Florida\u2019s lead to 53-51 when Somto Cyril followed a missed free throw with a dunk.<\/p>\n
But the Gators answered with defense, holding the Hurricanes without a field goal over a five-minute stretch. When Urban Klavzar made a 3-pointer, Florida led 66-55.<\/p>\n
When Haugh didn\u2019t connect, his teammates picked him up. Late in the first half, Isaiah Brown followed Haugh\u2019s miss with a putback dunk to give Florida a 44-32 advantage.<\/p>\n
Stuck in a tight battle over the game\u2019s first eight minutes, Florida used a 9-0 run to take command and didn\u2019t trail again.<\/p>\n
Florida, which has managed to retain its roster nucleus over multiple years, won with muscle and effort. A physical matchup between instate rivals, the contest included two technicals and three fouls that were upgraded to flagrants.<\/p>\n
Up next<\/p>\n
Florida: Hosts Jacksonville on Thursday night.<\/p>\n
Miami: Hosts Wagner on Friday night.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Sign up for Top 25 poll alerts here<\/a>, visit the Top 25 here<\/a> and see AP\u2019s full men\u2019s basketball coverage here<\/a><\/p>\n Copyright 2026 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"TAMPA, Fla. \u2013 Thomas Haugh had 19 points and 10 rebounds to lead No. 1 Florida to a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":445723,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29,9379,25404,110,173475,3115],"class_list":["post-445722","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-isaiah-brown","tag-rueben-chinyelu","tag-sports","tag-thomas-hauck","tag-thomas-haugh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445722","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=445722"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/445722\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/445723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=445722"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=445722"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=445722"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}