Florida men’s basketball head coach [autotag]Todd Golden[/autotag] secured his first signature win with the Gators on Tuesday night, taking down the No. 1 Tennessee Volunteers by 30 points in the O’Connell Center.
The win comes after Florida’s 13-game win streak was snapped over the weekend despite scoring 100 points against a good Kentucky team. Even at home, Florida was only a slight favorite to upset the final unbeaten in the sport.
Golden’s crew lost the shootout in Lexington but proved that the defensive stepback was just a bad night holding the Volunteers to 43 In Gainesville. [autotag]Alijah Martin[/autotag] and [autotag]Denzel Aberdeen[/autotag] combined for points, [autotag]Alex Condon[/autotag] posted a double-double (12, 12) and [autotag]Rueben Chinyelu[/autotag] dominated the boards.
Golden spoke about the win, those three players and more after the win. Here’s everything he said.
Opening statement
“A great performance by our players tonight. I thought they did a wonderful job executing our game plan from start to finish. Talking to (the media) earlier this week, I thought we played with great toughness physically at Kentucky on Saturday, but our mental toughness wasn’t where it needed to be to win that game on the road. I thought tonight we played with great mental and physical toughness for 40 minutes, top to bottom.
“I thought all eight guys that played answered the bell. We obviously guarded incredibly well tonight. I thought we were great on the glass and we took care of the ball well enough. This is a great result for us, and hopefully this kind of continues to catapult us through the rest of the season.”
On Denzel Aberdeen
“‘Zel’s super important to us. Obviously, he doesn’t start, but he’s the only other perimeter that’s getting consistent minutes, and when he plays well, we’re really, really good. I thought he did some good things last Saturday, but some things that we need more from him, and tonight we got more from him.
“He had 16 in 20 minutes. I thought he did a good job defensively, and just had some really big moments that allowed us to continue to build the lead. But as he continues to come of age, if we can continue to get consistent performances from him this way, we’re going to be really tough.”
On program-first win over No. 1
“We have incredible respect for Tennessee and the program that Coach (Rick) Barnes built there. We knew this was going to be a really challenging game for us, but we also do believe we’re getting to that point where we expect to win these types of games.
“It’s hard to say when you host the No. 1 team in the country that you expect to win, but I think our program did going into this game tonight. We had good prep. I thought we had really good mentality, had a good shoot-around today, and our guys, they were just ready for it. You can sense it if guys are nervous or if they’re not preparing the right way, and I thought we were really locked in and I thought our performance showed that.”
On playing at O’Connell Center in Gainesville
“It’s an incredible homecourt advantage. I think our fans have been fantastic supporting us. As amazing as it was tonight, when you sell out a game like Stetson a couple of weeks ago on a weekend of a break with no students around on a Sunday, I was like, man, like, alright, these fans really have our back. They’ve done a great job supporting us all year, and we knew what tonight was going to be.
“We drove up for shootaround. I think I got to the O’Dome at like 12:30, and the line was already around the block with people waiting to get into the gym. We knew it was going to be a great atmosphere tonight, and we knew we’re going to get a lift from the crowd. Obviously, after Year 1, specifically last year and this year, this has become a great home-court advantage for us and one of the best in America.”
On defensive and mental preparedness of team
“It’s probably the best (in my three years), right? We were dominant tonight from start to finish. We really didn’t have many lapses. They went on one 7-0 run with four minutes to go in the second half. Other than that, I thought we did a good job of not allowing things to ever get away from us like it did on Saturday at times. But it was just a super-complete performance.”
On 30-point margin of victory
“I wouldn’t say stunning. I would say I’m really pleased with the way we took advantage of our opportunities tonight. No, I didn’t expect us to win by 30. I didn’t.
“We stressed it. We really did. We talked about it a ton. Tennessee, they’re one of the best programs in America. We know that. They’re consistently at the top of our league, and Coach Barnes has established their culture so well where every guy that steps on the court for them is tough. They play to win. They’re unselfish. They’re an incredibly well-put-together program that way.
“When we talk to our guys leading up to this game, it’s like, ‘Listen’ — can’t remember, Saturday, Sunday, so I guess it would have been yesterday — a guy was complaining about fouls, and I just snapped in practiced. I’m like, ‘Yo, we’re not getting these calls tomorrow night, alright? We can’t expect to have the refs call certain things. It’s going to be a war. It’s going to be an absolute war playing these guys.’
“Again, I thought our guys met the match with that fight. There were not many possessions in that game where I felt like we were not the tougher team. I thought our guys did a great job of sustaining that for 40 minutes.”
On 3-point defense turnaround
“Flip the coin, man. Honestly, we gave up some good looks tonight. We did. Lanier had a couple early, but the intensity and the physicality. They were good looks, but they might not have been in great rhythm, and we just kind of got that thing snowballing tonight. That’s the volatility of the 3-point shot.
“That’s why when I talk to you guys, to me, what good 3-point defense is with a guy like Lanier or Koby Brea, you just got to limit their attempts because once that ball is in the air, there’s nothing you can do about it. We got bailed out a couple of times with them missing some good looks tonight. They did not let us off the hook on Saturday.
“Sometimes, from the 3-point line, it finds a way to even itself out, and tonight we were on the better end of some of the 3-point luck that we weren’t on Saturday. But again, I thought we set the tone really well with our defense and we obviously guarded the two really well also. It looks like they were 8-for-27 from two, which is really dang good. I’m really proud of that as well.”
On in-practice focus on 3-point defense
“We talk about it a lot. They were gunning early. I think five of the first seven shots were from 3, which I didn’t necessarily expect, but 29 is probably too many attempts, to be honest. But they weren’t in a great rhythm either. I think they probably missed some that they would normally make. Just the flow of the game kind of allowed us to take advantage of that.”
On Rueben Chinyelu’s 15 rebounds
“He’s a beast, man. He’s an absolute physical beast and I thought he did a great job on Saturday with his offensive rebounds and his putbacks.
“It’s disheartening for your opponent when you play a good defensive possession and he just skies over everybody, grabs it, outlet, now we’re out running, putting pressure on you in transition. Rueben is a guy who doesn’t get a lot of credit because he doesn’t score a lot on most nights, but he’s done a great job over the course of the year of continuing to find more ways to impact winning in games.
“We knew once we got to SEC play and we saw more consistently big lineups, he would be able to help us and I thought he did a great job tonight.”
On Will Richard
“Will has become such a winning player. When we first got him, he was young – a sophomore. We were like, alright, if he’s making 3s he can really blow the cover off the game, but if not, how is he impacting? Well, now at this point in his career, he’s become a much better defender.
“He’s a really, really good defender. Someone you can put on a shooter and he has the mental toughness to stick with them. He’s gotten so much better at fighting through screens. He’s rebounding better. He had three offensive rebounds tonight. His floor game has gotten better. He’s what you hope to see when a guy goes through your program, consistently getting better and finding ways to become more of a winner.
“But with those three seniors in the backcourt, you’re gonna feel really good with those guys out there most nights. They give you a lot of confidence as a coach.”
On Alijah Martin’s competitive impact
“Yes, he is (a winner). I think he’s been as important as anybody to our success. Just the mentality that he came in here with really raised the maturity level of our team.
“The great thing about Alijah is that he’s won at a high level before. He played in a Final Four, so as soon as he stepped into our locker room, he commanded a lot of respect from his teammates because he was the only guy in the locker room that had really won at that high level.
“I give him a lot of credit because he’s been super consistent. He’s wanted the challenge defensively, and he’s definitely raised the bar for his teammates in terms of the type of effort that they give on a nightly basis on the defensive end.”
On holding Chaz Lanier to 10 points
“He did miss some early that were decent looks, but I thought we just did a great job of staying in his hip pocket and not letting them get any super-clean looks to where he got comfortable.
“Our goal was to try to make him operate in the mid-range and make him make tough 2s over us. He made a couple, but just 3 for 16; we did a good job on him. We made most of his 3s tough as well. But with him having an inefficient night like that, it gave us the opportunity to win the way we did.”
On limiting Zakai Zeigler to one assist
“That was a huge part of it. I thought our ball-screen coverage was much better than it was on Saturday. I thought our bigs did a great job getting the level of the screen. Martin, Denzel when they were on him did a good job of keeping them on a side, and then getting back in front so our big could release.
“They’re so good at getting those lobs at the rim. If you watch the game when they played Arkansas last week, Zeigler would do a good job getting in the paint and anytime the big helped up at all. It was just up at the rim and Okpara was smashing it or Phillips was smashing it.
“We did a great job of keeping him out of the paint and allowing our bigs to get back to the body of Okpaara. They try to throw a couple of those lobs, and they ended up in turnovers, and those were big plays for us.”
On the most lopsided win against No. 1 since 1968 UCLA beat Houston
“That is (some crazy history). This was a great game for us, obviously. I’m incredibly proud of our players and our staff, because we prepared really well for this game, and I thought our guys did everything that we asked them to do, and then some, and they were the reason why we got this result.
“Like I said, I’m incredibly proud, but now our biggest thing is this can’t be the highlight of our season. It’s awesome in the moment, and we’re gonna enjoy it tonight, our guys are off tomorrow. But it certainly won’t feel as good if we don’t go and find a way to win in Fayetteville on Saturday.
“So, we’ll enjoy it tonight. We’ll start prepping for Arkansas tomorrow, and we got to find a way to get to 2-1 in this league — because any road win in this league is going to feel like gold.”
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