Florida basketball earned its ninth-straight win to start the 2024-25 campaign on Wednesday night, defeating the Virginia Cavaliers inside the O’Connell Center, 87-69, as a part of this year’s SEC-ACC Challenge.
The victory not only marked the first time the program has won this many consecutive games to start the schedule since the 2005-06 campaign, it also represented payback for a three-point loss to UVA last fall in the Hall of Fame Series. Additionally, the Orange and Blue have earned all nine triumphs in double-digit fashion.
Following the big win, [autotag]Todd Golden[/autotag] spoke with the sports media about his team’s performance. Here is what he had to offer.
Opening statement
“Proud of our program, proud of our guys. Being 9-0 is hard to do. You know, I thought the first five or six minutes of the game, we weren’t playing as well as we needed to. You know, I didn’t think we guarded with enough urgency on the perimeter. I didn’t think we rebounded well enough. And it led to us, you know, having a nine-point deficit early on.
“But, you know, from that point forward, obviously, to outscore them by 27 is really hard to do, and I thought we did, you know, we kicked it up a gear, started guarding better, getting clean rebounds and getting out in transition. I thought Denzel (Aberdeen) and Sam (Alexis) were huge for us in the first half. I thought they gave us a big lift off the bench and allowed us to get a little momentum in the game.
“And, you know, obviously some really good individual performances. I thought Walt (Clayton) was fantastic, you know, makes makes me a much better coach when he plays like he does tonight. I thought (Alex Condon), you know, was really, really efficient and effective down on the block. And, you know, against a team that’s a really good 2-point field goal percentage defense.
“So multiple good performances, you know, proud of the way our guys performed through nine games. And, you know, I think we’re excited and looking forward to getting a few days off here before going to Atlanta and playing Arizona State.”
On Denzel Aberdeen’s 12-point performance
“Yeah, he’s just grown up, you know, getting better and the natural progression of a young guy coming into Division I one and sticking with it, and we’ve talked about it a lot, his willingness to stay a part of the program without being promised certain things, was something that we were really excited about.
“Everybody saw at the end of last year what he was capable of, and the fact that he’s been able to do it more consistently has allowed our team to be better. Again, I thought he provided a huge lift in the first half, obviously offensively, but also on the defensive end.
“And you know, I look at that steal he got in the backcourt, where he kind of picked the guy and went up for a dunk. You know, that was a huge momentum play. Hit two big threes, you know, earned every minute that he got tonight.”
On Florida’s scoring runs
“One of the really good qualities of our team is our spurtability, you know, our ability to go on big runs. And, you know, in the Wichita game, I think we went on a 27-0 run.
“Tonight, I think it was 15-0 in the first half. I think we’ve had a double-digit run (to zero) run in pretty much every one of our games so far to this point. I think it speaks to the depth of our team. I think it speaks to the efficiency of the way we play offense and the way we’ve been better on the defensive end. We weren’t great overall defensively tonight. I thought our rebounding was poor compared to how it’s been over the last couple weeks.
“But when we get going and we’re able to put a couple stops together and get clean rebounds, we’re really, really hard to guard in transition and, you know, again, you know, while Alijah, Will our perimeter, pushing the ball up the floor and our bigs running and getting easy layups and dunks, you know, we have the ability to do that to teams.”
On Florida’s 20 points off turnovers
“Against Virginia, they’re a pretty stout half-court defense, you know, and so you got to find ways to create offensive opportunities. Looking at their two losses before they played us tonight, both those teams turned them over quite a bit.
“So that was an area that we felt like we would have to have some success to be able to open the floor for us a little bit and be able to get easier baskets, which we were able to do, and pressure on the defensive end was something that we emphasized quite a bit over the last two days.
“We didn’t guard the three-point line well enough early and I thought that definitely bothered me. I thought it kept us at bay. But once we were able to take the 3-point line away and pressure them and make them play late in the clock, we were able to get some turnovers that way, which resulted in some runouts and allowed us to get some momentum.”
Florida’s frontcourt’s ability to space floor
“Yeah, you know it’s Condo, but also Tommy and Sam has the ability to make it from out there. And, you know, the way we play with multiple bigs, teams generally want to try to clog the paint, make it hard for us, and when they have the ability to step out and stretch the defense, those are back breakers because you’re trying to take certain things away, and you got to kind of pick your poison a little bit.
“But letting Tommy or Condo, you know, shoot open threes probably isn’t a great strategy either. So, you know, trying to find that middle ground against us is tough.
“But you know, his confidence level, his awareness, his understanding of the right ones to take, you know, I think has gotten really, really good. And he started shooting the ball well from 3 at the end of conference play last year, and he’s just continued on that trajectory. And Tommy shot it really, really well over the last, you know, two weeks. And when they can spread it like that, it just makes us really, really hard to guard.”
On Walter Clayton ‘exorcising demons’ from last year’s UVA game
“There’s been a lot of conversation about him playing the point guard position. And again, it’s one of the best defensive teams in America, you look down and he has 27 points, four assists and one turnover in 34 minutes.
“And to be honest, the turnover is pretty fluky, you know? It wasn’t a bad decision. It was just kind of somebody to get his hands in on the ball in a transition play, but he’s a fantastic player and when he plays at a high level like that offensively, it just, it makes us pretty dang good.
“But he, he definitely did exorcise some demons. I thought he did a great job handling the way they guard ball screens with their hard show. He just ran around it. Made some really good decisions on when to drive or when to pass to the big and, you know, transparently, just playing at a really high level right now.”
On Clayton’s improvement at point guard
“Yeah, you know, the other thing about it too is, you know, I think our staff, we had a much better plan tonight against Virginia than we did last year, and our guys executed it, which is the most important thing. But we probably didn’t prepare our guys well enough last year going into that game. We didn’t make that same mistake again tonight.
“You know, I think our guys had a good understanding of how they were going to guard us and then, offensively, what we should try to run to exploit it, and then defensively, I thought our plan was good. I thought Hov — Kevin Hovde — did a great job with our scout and preparing our guys to play tonight. And the results spoke to that.”
On SEC dominating SEC/ACC Challenge
“I think analytically, the SEC is the best conference in college basketball in the last six years, or something like that, six or seven years. And when you look at, you know, a team like South Carolina, for example, that you know, hadn’t played incredibly well over the first couple weeks, and then they go on the road to Boston College and win by 16, that’s really, really hard to do.
“You know, Georgia played really well against Notre Dame yesterday. A&M played well against Wake. LSU beats Florida State. The only, only contest we lost was Kentucky in a really tough game on the road against Clemson. I just saw ‘Bama won by 15 at North Carolina tonight. And a few more games to be played, but there’s no running from it.
“This is the best conference in college basketball and it’s not particularly close right now. And you know, we got four more games in the non-conference that we got to worry about before we get to league play, but there’s no doubt that the SEC is the best conference in college basketball. Every night is going to be an absolute battle once we get to league play.
“And as we’ve talked about before, our conference schedule starts out pretty difficult with at Kentucky, at home against Tennessee, and I think we go on the road to Arkansas. Yeah, so fun three games to start. The great thing is, you’re gonna have an opportunity every night. I think, at least at this point, every road conference game is Quad-I, so you start with nine right there.
“And you know, there’s gonna be probably four more home games that reach that level and there’s a good chance if South Carolina continues to play better that every home game will be Quad-II or better. So opportunities are plenty, you know, once we get into January.”
On Clayton’s confidence
“It’s an incredible talent to have. A rational confidence. You could describe it that way. But for him, it’s not irrational. You know, I think he has a great level of confidence, but he’s also a great competitor.
“And I think, you know, being able to balance those two things, it looks, you know, he’s out there, and he doesn’t necessarily look like he’s moving that fast all the time, but he always finds a way to get that separation. And you know, he’s been much better defensively this year than he was last year.
“He’s competed much better on that end. And there’s stretches throughout the course of the game where, you know, the coaching is keeping him in the game, you know, and just letting him run up and down the floor and let him make decisions in transition, because when he plays in the open court, there’s nothing that we can draw up that’ll get us better looks than what he’s able to provide that way.
“You know, he is playing at the level that we hoped he would and that we need him to if we want to compete for a National Champion.”
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