Florida guards [autotag]Denzel Aberdeen[/autotag] and [autotag]Alijah Martin[/autotag] joined forward [autotag]Alex Condon[/autotag] in front of the media after the Gators, 73-43, win over the No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers.
Martin led all scorers with 18 points, followed by Aberdeen with 16 over 20 minutes off the bench and Condon who notched his third double-double of the season with a 12-and-12 performance.
Head coach Todd Golden also spoke to the media after this win. Check this Gators Wire story for a transcript of his post-game comments. Here’s what the players had to say.
On dominant, physical performance
Martin: We just wanted to take home court. Big shout out to the fans, the students. The place was rocking tonight. It definitely was something fun to play in and credit to everybody that prepared the preparation for Tennessee. We followed it to the tee. We trusted it and we secured it.
On physicality vs. a No. 1 overall
Condon: It was a great win. I think we just brought the physicality tonight, like coach was saying. They’re a very physical team, and the refs let it go tonight. So, I think that was the key part for us to win tonight.
Aberdeen: It was very important (to impose Florida’s style). Coach Golden was saying that this team is very physical rebounding. We got to come and bang and we can’t let them get easy looks … Credit to our bigs, who are very physical getting rebounds, like you said earlier, and the guards, credit as well for coming in and helping the bigs out and rebounding.
We knew they were physical. We knew the refs were going to let things go sometimes. We just had to not look for foul calls and just go to the rim aggressively on offense and just try to finish everything.
On defending Chaz Lanier
Martin: We just kind of stay in him, you know? We didn’t want to give him no breathing room. He’s an unbelievable talent, an unbelievable shooter. He don’t need no space, and then that was the whole game plan. Just don’t give him no space. Don’t give him nothing easy.
On responding defensively to the Kentucky loss
Aberdeen: We knew, coming from the Kentucky game, we had to pick our defense up, especially because they had another great shooter, Chaz. So we knew, coming into this game, we had to stop letting the 3s come up easily, and luckily they missed a lot of wide-open 3s.
We still stuck together and talked through it, and we fought through screens because they were setting a lot of down screens and stuff, pindowns. Coming out of halftime, we just talked about our defensive game plan and what we need to do better.
Martn: Kentucky had a great offense, just like we do. We knew that was going to be a high-scoring game, but tonight we just was more intentional. We were more locked in to the scout. I just seen something different in everybody’s eye during the scout. Going through player tendencies and stuff like that, everybody seemed locked in. If we can do that all year, we’ll be great.
Denzel Aberdeen on scoring night
Aberdeen: Credit to the bigs again because they got offensive rebounds, which led to close-outs. I just read the defense, what the defense was giving me, and coach Golden said, go and attack the rim off two feet, play off two feet and be strong, so I guess that’s what I did today.
The bigs had a great dunk game and was providing easy layups for me. And my shots too, guards, Alijah, Walt, Will finding me in the right spots and just me being ready to shoot.
On scoring with Clayton in foul trouble
Condon: Yeah, I think Zel provides a great scoring presence. Coming off the bench, it doesn’t … take a dip when Walt checks out of the game. The guards are so good at finding the bigs and playing together.
We basically said coming out of halftime, we let UNC come back into it a little bit, and we weren’t happy with our second-half defensive performance against Kentucky, too. So, yeah, just ensuring that we kept, the foot on the gas in the second half was a big emphasis for us.
Aberdeen: That just what (kind of) overall team we have. If Walt’s down, I know Condo and them is going to pick it up. If Condo was down, A-Mart and Will was going to pick it up. We just got a great overall team from guards to bigs, so I know each game we’re going to pick each other up. We just going to back up each other. If one goes down, we going to pick it up.
On playing with Rueben Chinyelu
Condon: When we both crash, you know it’s hard to stop both of us. Rube’s a very physical dude, and I like passing him the ball because he usually finishes off for me.
On overall rebound success
Martin: We got hits. Yeah, we got hits. Nobody ran, had a free lane to the rim. We hit everybody and we came up with it.
On confidence playing at home
Martin: Super confident.
Aberdeen: Very confident.
Martin: It’s going to be hard. It’s going to be hard to beat us here. This is our house.
You guys are winning by an average of 30 points at home this year
Martin: Shh-h-h—… That’s all I can say. Shhhhh.
Condon: We’re going to protect the home court. I think we take pride together in not letting people come in and not be out physical on us and just take it to them from the start of the game. So, yeah, that’s that’s an emphasis for us.
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.
