Florida basketball moved to 10-0 on the season with a 83-66 victory over Arizona State on Saturday. The 10-game win streak is Florida’s longest since a 30-game stretch in 2013-14.
The Sun Devils made things competitive for the first five minutes, but a 12-0 run by the Gators put UF out in front enough to never look back. Arizona State pulled the margin down to single digits a few times, but Florida always answered and led by 11 or more for the final 18 minutes of the contest.
[autotag]Walter Clayton Jr[/autotag]. led all scorers with 25 points on 8-of-18 shooting, including a few three-pointers from NBA range (5-of-13). [autotag]Alijah Martin[/autotag] added 15 points (6-of-10), 11 rebounds and six assists, and [autotag]Will Richard[/autotag] had 16 points (5-of-12), six rebounds and two assists.
Based on the current NET rankings, this is Florida’s first Quadrant 1 victory of the season, which should come in handy come Selection Sunday. Arizona State must ranked inside the top 50 throughout the season — currently No. 35 — to remain a Q1 opponent on a neutral court.
Big 3 dominates for Florida
The trio of Clayton, Martin and Richard nearly outscored Arizona State with a combined 56 points. Todd Golden has talked about the benefits of having three elite scoring guards on the roster in the past, but it’s a rare occasion to see all three of these guys light it up on the same night.
Those kinds of performances are necessary for a team looking to make a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, and it’s encouraging to see it come against a Power Four opponent that’s ranked inside the top 100 nearly everywhere. The next challenge is replicating this kind of output against an SEC team.
Martin also recorded Florida’s second double-double of the season with 11 rebounds and added six assists. The only blemish on Florida’s big three are the six turnovers by Richard.
Defense, defense, defense
As good as Florida’s offense is, the defense might have been more impressive against ASU on Saturday. The Gators held the Sun Devils to 66 points and shut down five-star freshman Joson Sanon, who scored just five points after averaging nearly 16 on the season — and three of those came in garbage time against Florida’s backups.
Arizona State shot just 37% from the field and 28% from three-point range.
Florida has outscored opponents by 211 points over its first 10 games and has only allowed two teams to score more than 68 points — Florida State (74) and South Florida (83).
Golden stressed the importance of improved defense at the beginning of the season, and the Gators seem to get better on the side of the ball with each week.
Bigs don’t need to score to impact the game
Focusing on the negatives isn’t particularly useful after another big win, but it’s notable that Florida was able to dominate this matchup without a big scoring day from its frontcourt star, Alex Condon.
It was clear from an early point in the game that Condon didn’t have his touch around the rim, but he impacted the game with eight rebounds and a block.
The rest of the frontcourt followed suit. Rueben Chinyelu also grabbed eight boards to help Florida out-rebound Arizona State, 47-27, and Thomas Haugh was a nice defensive presence off the bench. Sam Alexis had some success around the rim, scoring eight for Florida, including an alley-oop slam late in the second half.
Good teams can’t rely on one guy to lead, and Florida continually proves that it has depth at every position.
Next up for Florida
The Gators head to Charlotte, North Carolina, to face the North Carolina Tar Heels on Tuesday, Dec. 17. Tipoff is scheduled for 7 p.m. ET and the game will be broadcast on ESPN.
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