Martin's 32 leads Gators to blowout over Southern Illinois, 93-68

Alijah Martin woofs after a throw-down dunk (UAA Photo)

For six-and-a-half minutes, especially, Friday night, Florida’s 21st-ranked Gators (6-0) showed exactly what happens when they put it all together at both ends of the court. The Gators were leading Southern Illinois (2-3), 19-15, when Rueben Chinyelu grabbed an offensive rebound and shuffled it off to Will Richard for a layup with 7:37 left in the first half. Nice pass, for sure, but nothing really earth shattering about the play. About 30 seconds later, Denzel Aberdeen scored on a layup after a Southern Illinos turnover. Again, a nice play for nothing to write home about.

Next, Alijah Martin stole the ball and advanced it to Aberdeen who lobbed it upcourt to Alex Condon who was running ahead of the pack. Six straight points in 51 seconds for a 25-15 lead. The O-Dome crowd announced at 9,533 was starting to get into it. Things were starting to get electric.

Then came the play that had the effect of a pod of orcas starting a feeding frenzy. Chinyelu blocked a shot, Richard retrieved it and a few bounces later lobbed it up above the rim to Martin, who finished with a thundering throw down of a dunk. The crowd went nuts.

The Gators would score another 14 points before Southern Illinois could apply a band-aid to a gaping wound. When Martin drilled a pull-up 3-pointer on the break with 1:08 left in the half after a Thomas Haugh rebound and throw-ahead pass, the Gators completed an astonishing 27-4 run for a 46-19 lead.

Todd Golden called it the best stretch of basketball the Gators have played this season.

“We just started getting cleaner stops, cleaner rebounds, and got out in transition,” Golden said after the Gators kept their record perfect with a 93-68 blowout of Southern Illinois. “When we do that we're tough to stop .... Denzel threw Condo that alley-oop and then on the next play, we got a steal and run-out, Martin got a dunk, and then we started hitting a bunch of shots. And, you know, as we talked a lot about, if we are able to shoot well, which we did tonight, you know, we're going to be tough to beat.”

When the Gators play at both ends of the floor like they did during that first half run, they can hang with and probably beat any team in the country. The Gators were overpowering. They were ultra-quick. They were intimidating.

And yes, they hit shots. Lots of them including 3-pointers. In the first five games of the season the Gators were brick city from the 3-point line, hitting 28.9 percent which was 274th nationally. With Martin leading the way with eight threes in 13 shots, aided and abetted by Haugh, who hit 3-5, the Gators had easily their best night shooting from the 3-point line -- 16-39 for 41 percent.

Martin finished the game with a collegiate-best 32 points to go with nine rebounds, five assists and two steals. Martin came into the game having hit just 8-30 (26.6 percent) from the 3-point line, but after Friday night he improved to 37.2 percent. Although he’s a 6-3 guard, Martin leads the Gators in rebounding at 6.7 per game.

Haugh scored 19, grabbed seven rebounds and had three assists to go with four blocked shots. Haugh, a notoriously poor free throw shooter as a freshman last year (45.7 percent), made all four of his free throw attempts (80 percent through six games) while knocking down 3-5 from the 3-point line. Haugh is hitting 33.3 percent on his threes this year after a 25.5 percent season a year ago.

Even the 27-4 run in the first half wasn’t perfect basketball, but it was a sure sign that the Gators are getting closer to playing with the kind of intensity and consistency that Golden has been looking for.

“I thought we played pretty well tonight,” Golden said. “Had a good stretch back half of the first half where, you know, we kind of put it all together from the defensive side, clean rebounds, getting out and running in transition, obviously, shooting the ball well, and we're able to stretch that lead out pretty good in the first half. I thought second half, you know, played very well offensively. Again, have not been able to play 40 complete minutes defensively or on the glass. I thought we let ourselves off the hook that way, but again, you know, those are probably hyper-critical thoughts after a 25-point win. Really thought our guys did a good job start to finish tonight.”

Florida’s once 27-point first half lead shrunk to 46-25 at the half and the Salukis narrowed it down to 17 (48-31) within the first three minutes of the second, but the Gators were never in any danger of letting them back into the game. A lot of that had to do with Martin who kept pouring it on after an 18-point effort in the first half.

Martin hit 4-7 from the 3-point line in the first half and followed that up with 14 points including 4-6 from the 3-point line in the second. This was a night when the basket looked as big as Lake Alice for the fifth-year transfer from Florida Atlantic.

“I felt like they were all going in,” Martin said.

From a defensive standpoint, the Gators had that lapse at the end of the first half and beginning of the second, plus they let the Salukis get some cheap points in the second half off deflected rebounds that should have been corralled by UF players. Still, the Gators held Southern Illinois to 34.7 percent shooting overall (25-72) and limited the Salukis to 5-15 shooting from the 3-point line.

Leading up to the game, the Gators put emphasis on defending without lapses in intensity, which forced the Salukis to go deep into the shot clock. That led to rushed shots at the end of the clock that didn’t go down.

“Obviously, we've talked about a lot, the way we've tried to put more of an emphasis on the defensive side of the ball this year, and   a lot of that has to do with being tough and guarding deep into the clock,” Golden said. “And, you know, I think we've done a really good job over the course of the first five games of forcing teams to take tough shots. You know, Southern Illinois has some good players. We held them to 35 percent from the field. Held that 3-point number down, you know. Just from a mass standpoint, we made one more three (16) than they took (15), so we obviously won the three point game pretty comfortably. But yeah, just having good, solid defensive possessions is really important to us, and I thought the first half we did a really good job. Second half, again, we didn't finish it rebounding well enough. But overall, you know, a decent effort that way.”

Game notes: At 6-0 the Gators equaled their best start since the 2021-22 season, in which Mike White was the head coach. If UF can get a win over Wake Forest next Thursday in Orlando, they will have equaled their best start to a season since the 2012-13 season coached by Billy Donovan ... A sign of how good the Gators can be. They scored 93 points and won by 25 in a game in which Walter Clayton Jr. (7) and Will Richard (5) combined for only 12 points ... The Gators had a season-high 25 assists for 35 made shots ... The Gators committed only six turnovers.