Florida Women’s Basketball Opens Brutal Stretch With Road Test at No. 6 LSU

Florida women’s basketball coach Kelly Rae Finley delivered a strong message after the Gators picked up their first SEC win of the season Sunday, an 89-71 home victory over the Missouri Tigers.

“Once we feel the feeling, we’re not going to look back,” she said.

Now, the Gators face a different kind of Tiger.

Florida (13-8, 1-5 SEC) opens a daunting three-game stretch against top-10 opponents Monday night at 7 p.m. when it travels to Baton Rouge to take on No. 6 LSU (18-2, 4-2 SEC). The gauntlet continues with a home matchup Thursday against No. 4 Texas and wraps up Sunday at No. 5 Vanderbilt.

With that run ahead, Florida faces the risk of falling to 13-11 and 1-8 in conference play. The Gators have just a 1.8 percent chance to beat LSU, a 3.6 percent chance to beat Texas and an 8.3 percent chance to beat Vanderbilt, according to ESPN Analytics. Based on those numbers, ESPN gives Florida only a 13.2 percent chance to win at least one game in the stretch.

Nonetheless, the Gators are coming off their most impressive victory of the season. They opened the game against Missouri on a 13-0 run and led wire-to-wire, shooting 53.1 percent from the field and knocking down 10 threes.

Standout sophomore guard Liv McGill led the way with 28 points, nine rebounds and seven assists. She enters Monday averaging 23.4 points, 5.6 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.9 steals per game, and has scored in double figures in 22 straight outings.

“I would tell myself that being consistent every day really matters, not even for myself, for my teammates,” McGill said.

Sophomore forward Me’Arah O’Neal added 17 points against Missouri, while junior Laila Reynolds chipped in 14 and graduate transfer Alexia Dizeko had a career-high 16 off the bench. O’Neal, whose father Shaquille O’Neal starred at LSU, will face his alma mater. Florida has shot better than 50 percent in each of its last two games and hit 42.2 percent from three-point range during that stretch.

The Gators now turn their attention to an LSU team led by Hall of Fame, four-time national champion coach Kim Mulkey. The Tigers lead the nation in scoring at 99.5 points per game and a field goal percentage of 52.6 percent. They’ve won four straight since opening SEC play with losses to Kentucky and Vanderbilt.

LSU is deep and balanced, with seven players averaging double figures, including Flau’jae Johnson (14.5), MiLaysia Fulwiley (14.5) and Mikaylah Williams (12.7). The Tigers also dominate the boards, holding a +19.4 rebound margin per game.

Florida is 16-36 all-time against LSU and has lost five straight in the series. The last Gator win came in January 2022 in Gainesville. A victory Monday would mark Florida’s first over a ranked team since March 2025 and its first top-25 road win in nearly four years.

To keep things close, Florida will need to limit turnovers, rebound as a team and keep up its recent hot shooting. McGill must control the pace and handle LSU’s pressure, while the Gators need to weather the opening minutes to avoid falling behind early in a hostile environment.

Finley said the key against Missouri was setting the tone from the opening tip.

“Liv did a great job on the first possession of the game setting the tone for how aggressive we were going to be,” Finley said. “Now the challenge is: let’s just make that a habit, right guys?”

If Florida wants to shock LSU in Baton Rouge, that habit will have to stick.

Category: College Basketball, Feature Sports News, Gator Sports, Gators Women's Basketball, SEC, University of Florida