Box Score MORGANTOWN, W.Va. – Colin Castleton scored 21 points to lead Florida to an 85-80 come-from-behind victory over 11^th-ranked West Virginia in today's Big 12/SEC Challenge at the WVU Coliseum.
 
West Virginia, now 11-5 overall, led 42-37 at halftime and 44-37 at the start of the second half, but soon ran into trouble when guard Deuce McBride picked up his third foul with 18:47 left.
 
The Gators (10-4) warmed up from 3-point distance to take the lead, 59-58, on Noah Locke's triple. The two teams traded leads until another Locke 3 with 6:49 remaining put the Gators ahead 72-70. Two Castleton free throws pushed the Florida lead to four and it got to six, 81-75, with 3:22 remaining.
 
A Sean McNeil 3 pulled the Mountaineers to within three and they eventually got it to one on Culver's put-back basket with 1:40 to go. 
 
Castleton got two more free throws to go down at the other end to make the score 83-80.
 
West Virginia had three different opportunities to tie the game. A desperation McNeil 3 following a Florida timeout didn't draw iron, but the Mountaineers got the ball back when Castleton charged into Gabe Osabuohien.
 
Following a West Virginia 30-second timeout, Florida forced a held ball when Derek Culver's cross-court pass was deflected and a scrum ensued on the floor.
 
West Virginia used its final timeout with 42 seconds left, but its possession ended unsuccessfully when Taz Sherman couldn't get his 3 to go down with 28 seconds to go. 
 
Tyree Appleby was fouled and made both free throws.
 
The second half boiled down to shooting – Florida made 55.2% of its field goal attempts while West Virginia converted just 33.3%.
 
The Gators were 7-of-11 from 3-point distance in the second half with Locke knocking down three of those. He finished with 19 and Appleby contributed 12.
 
"You have to guard the other team," Huggins said. "We start out the second half and we don't guard their best shooter (Locke) and they were all step-in shots."
 
Huggins was also upset with his team's effort tracking down loose balls to try and create extra possessions.
 
"How many times did you see the ball rolling and they dove for it and we didn't? I don't normally have guys do that," Huggins said. "When they do that I generally take guys out and sit them down. Possession of the ball is everything.
 
"We had a guy standing in the corner looking at his guy and the ball almost rolled up his leg," Huggins added. "He didn't know the ball was there."
 
The loss spoiled a career-best effort from Culver, who made 7-of-11 from the floor and 14-of-17 from the free throw line for 28 points. Twenty-one of those came in the first half, however, and his only field goal of the second half came at 1:40.
 
McNeil chipped in with 21, going 7-of-15 overall and 5-of-11 from 3. Sherman overcame a scoreless first half to finish with 11.
 
Deuce McBride, who scored 24 including the game-winning basket against Texas Tech on Monday night, finished with only 9 on 3-of-15 shooting.
 
The Gators finished the game shooting 48.1% overall to West Virginia's 39.7%.
 
The two big specialty stats for Florida were fast break points (26 to 5) and points in the paint (35 to 22).
 
"We can't continue to give up 80 points and win," Huggins said. "They played harder than we did and they got better shots than we got."
 
Florida has now won four straight against West Virginia including two in these Big 12/SEC Challenge games. The Mountaineers drop to 2-6 in the event since it was introduced eight years ago.
 
Today's game was West Virginia's final non-conference tilt of the regular season. 
 
WVU is back at it on Tuesday night at Iowa State for a 7 p.m. game at Hilton Coliseum. The Cyclones play at Mississippi State later this evening.