Part II: A journey to a national title; Gators stick it to No. 1 Tennessee

Will Richard drives the baseline against Tennessee (UAA Photo)

An unbeaten December bled into Southeastern Conference play in January. The Gators cracked the top ten but few in the national media were convinced Todd Golden had a team that would still be hanging around past the Sweet 16. A loss at Kentucky had people thinking same old, same old Florida, then came the No. 1 Tennessee Vols. Heads began to turn for everyone but Todd Golden and the Florida Gators. They always thought they were this good.

December 4, 2024, Gainesville

Virginia is in town. Not the Virginia we thought, because Tony Bennett abruptly retired as the head coach rather than deal with all the transfer portal and NIL problems that seem to multiply on an almost daily basis. Even without Tony, however, this is a team of players he recruited, which means they do play serious defense.

A minute into the second half, Virginia is within one (39-38) of the Gators. It’s Walter Clayton Jr. time. He scores 10 of Florida’s next 15 points as the Gators take control of the game. Of his 27 points, 18 come in the second half as the Gators turned the game into an 87-69 blowout. The Gators are 9-0 and all the wins are by 10 or more points.

Two things that stand out in this game. First, was Clayton, who seemed to flip a switch in his brain that told him to take the game over. When the season began there were some who questioned how Clayton would adapt to the point. These last three games – two at Disney and Virginia – show this isn’t an experiment. Clayton at the point is a very real deal.

Second, Alex Condon continues to show how much he developed in the offseason. Against UVa he had 19 points, eight rebounds, two assists, a blocked shot and two steals. He hit 7-8 shots from the field and nailed his 3-pointer. When Condon and Tommy Haugh are able to hit open threes it opens up the paint and makes the Gators even more dangerous.

“The way we play with multiple bigs, teams generally want to clog the paint,” Golden said. “… when they [Condon and Haugh] have the ability to step out and stretch the defense, those are backbreakers because you’re trying to take things away and you got to kind of pick your poison a little bit.”

December 14, 2024, Atlanta

Arizona State (8-1) is supposed to be the toughest test so far for the Gators, who have cracked the top ten in both the AP (9) and Coaches (7) polls. Emphasis on supposed. When Alijah Martin nails a 3-pointer with 16:16 left in the half that puts the Gators ahead 9-8 the Sun Devils are on their heels, where they stay the rest of the game. Walter Clayton Jr. goes off for 25 points, three rebounds, three assists, a blocked shot and three steals. Alijah Martin shows exactly why Todd Golden thought this was such a critical addition in the offseason. He’s only 6-2 but he had 11 rebounds and six assists to go with 15 points. Clayton (5) and Martin (3) combine for eight 3-pointers.

For the fourth straight game the defense turns in a dominating performance. Despite their good size, Arizona State scores only 28 in the paint and is outrebounded 47-27. The Sun Devils hit only 23-62 of their shots from the field and 7-25 from the 3-point line.

“Our defense was fantastic in the second half,” Golden says. “We have five kills, which is three stops in a row and holding Arizona State to under 40 from the field and under 30 from three is really tough to do.”

If there is a negative it is 14 turnovers that resulted in 19 points for the Sun Devils.

December 17, 2024, Charlotte

In Charlotte for the Jumpman Classic, essentially a home game for North Carolina, the Gators get their first real test of the season. The Gators will leave with a 90-84 win, but in doing so survive too many turnovers (17) and a bad day at the office when it comes to shooting the 3-ball. Maybe the biggest thing they prove is that they can win a game in a hostile environment when Walter Clayton Jr. can’t find the ocean from the end of the pier.

Ranked No. 7 in the most recent AP poll (6 in the Coaches), the Gators bolted out to a 17-point lead in the first half, but Carolina comes roaring back in the second half and led by as many as four points. Alijah Martin tied the game at 82-82 with a 3-pointer with 2:29 left and at 84-84 with a pair of free throws with 1:48 to go. It takes a stickback by Will Richard, two free throws by Tommy Haugh with seven seconds left and two more free throws by Richard with three seconds to go to seal the win.

Richard scored 22 points to go with six rebounds, an assist and a steal. Martin heated up late to finish with 19 despite 5-17 overall and 2-12 from the 3-point line. Clayton was 4-15 from the field, 1-7 from the 3-point line. He did have six rebounds but more turnovers (4) than assists (2).

Two things saved the Gators. The rebounding was outstanding (46-36 advantage; Alex Condon with 10) and the play off the bench by Denzel Alberdeen (12 points) and Haugh (9 points, 6 rebounds).

“To be honest, we haven’t had a game like this,” Todd Golden said. “We’ve won every game before this by double figures and so to be able to push through in a game where we trailed back and forth through the second half, I think is obviously great for us and will help prepare us for SEC play.”

December 21, 2024, Gainesville/December 29, 2024, Gainesville

North Florida and Stetson, not exactly threats to Florida’s unbeaten streak to start the season, but this is not just any season and it shows in the O-Dome crowds. In beating North Florida, 99-45, and Stetson, 85-45, crowds in excess of 10,000 pour into the O-Dome for both games. These games weren’t much more than glorified scrimmages, but Todd Golden got to play everybody and he saw consistent defensive intensity as the Gators improved to 13-0, their best start to a season since 2005-06 when they began the season 17-0.

North Florida and Stetson combined to go 11-58 from the 3-point line, 31-114 overall from the field. The Gators forced 32 turnovers off of which they scored 31 points. There were 23 steals and 12 blocked shots. The rebounding margin was 114-61.

The Gators ended the non-conference portion of the schedule 13-0, ranked No. 6 in the Associated Press poll, No. 5 in the AP. Even with the good record, the Gators aren’t perceived to be much of a threat to win a national championship. The talk is all about Auburn, Tennessee and Duke. Florida is an afterthought.

What the national media doesn’t know is they are throwing 40-gallon drums of gasoline on a fire that is raging within Golden. There is the disrespect card that he loves to play. There is the underdog factor as well. The Gators don’t have a single 5-star recruit on the roster.

It’s almost like a Last Chance U mentality. Golden reminds his team about all the 5-stars that dot rosters at Duke, North Carolina, Kansas, Alabama and Arkansas. It creates a giant chip on the Gators’ shoulders that doesn’t get knocked off.  

THE CONFERENCE SCHEDULE BEGINS

Walter Clayton Jr. lines up a 3-pointer against Kentucky (UAA Photo)

January 4, 2025, Lexington

A sure sign of the changing SEC is Florida and Kentucky will only play once instead of the usual two games and it is the first game of the season. Every other year, senior night at Rupp and the O-Dome is Florida-UK. This year it’s the first game of the year at Rupp. With No. 1 Tennessee and No. 23 Arkansas to follow, it’s as if the folks who made up the schedules in the SEC decided to punish Florida twice. The first time was football with the toughest schedule in the country, the second time basketball with that 3-game gauntlet to begin the conference slate.

In many ways, this seemed like a throwback to Florida’s 102-100 loss to Colorado in the first round of the 2024 NCAA Tournament. The Gators put more than enough points on the scoreboard to win, but they didn’t defend. Kentucky hit 14-29 from the 3-point line and shot 57.8 percent from the field overall.

“Bad defense,” is how Walter Clayton Jr. described it. Clayton did his part on the offensive end with 33 points, three rebounds and five assists. He hit 6-12 from the 3-point line. “It’s tough when you put up a hundred and the other put up a hundred and six. When you do that you’re doing something wrong defensively. Coaches gave us a game plan that we didn’t execute as players.”

The Gators were playing well in the first half when Kobe Brea came off the bench in a shooter’s coma. He hit four 3-balls in the first half as Kentucky rallied from a 9-point deficit to take a 50-42 lead at the half. The Gators were never far out of it in the second half, but every time they cut into the deficit, Kentucky made a couple of plays to keep the lead in the 6-to-8 range.

Florida’s ability to catch and surpass the Wildcats was doomed at the foul line where they were 22-35. Make the free throws and the Gators walk out of Rupp with a win. Florida scored 31 second chance points largely due to 15 offensive rebounds.

Alijah Martin hit five 3-pointers as part of a 26-point effort. Rueben Chinyelu had 10 points and eight rebounds, while Tommy Haugh scored 11 off the bench. Alex Condon had 10 rebounds to go with seven points.

Great offense for sure, but the defense was a huge step backward.

“We didn’t guard the three – gave up 42 points behind the line – and gave up 44 in the paint,” Golden said. “You just can’t come in here and expect to win guarding that way.”

January 7, 2025, Gainesville

The loss to Kentucky dropped the Gators down to No. 8 in the AP poll with No. 1 and unbeaten (14-0) Tennessee coming to town. Expectations among the national media are that the Vols will snuff out Florida’s high powered offense and win comfortably. It is supposed to be a bring your brass knuckles and switchblades type of game, the type of game in which Tennessee excels.

A funny thing happened on the way to the brawl. Florida came prepared to beat up the Vols physically, turning the Vols into wimps who were fortunate to limp away from the O-Dome on the short end of a 73-43 score. Postgame Todd Golden was gracious in victory and perhaps a bit surprised with the final margin, but he made it perfectly clear that he wasn’t surprised the Gators won the game.

“It’s hard to say when you host the No. 1 team in the country that you expect to win, but our program did going into this game tonight,” Golden said as the Gators improved to 14-1, 1-1 in the SEC. “ … Our guys, they were just ready for it. You can sense it if guys are nervous or if they’re not … and I thought we were really locked in and our performance showed that.”

What made a 30-point blowout win over the No. 1 team in the country even more remarkable was early foul trouble that sent Walter Clayton Jr. to the bench. Picking up his second foul with 14:59 left in the first half and the Gators up 8-0, Denzel Aberdeen came off the bench and the Gators didn’t miss a beat. Aberdeen was a factor at both ends of the floor. Offensively, he scored 16 points and committed only one turnover in 20 minutes. Defensively, he was part of a Florida effort that completely shut down the Tennessee perimeter game.

Chaz Lanier, the SEC’s leading scorer and one of the nation’s top 3-point bombers, was locked down by Will Richard. Lanier went 3-16 overall and 1-9 from the 3-point line. Overall, the Vols were just 4-29 on their threes and it wouldn’t have been that good except for two threes in the last two minutes when the game was already forever lost. Tennessee point guard Zakai Ziegler scored 10 points but he had only one assist while trying to get free from Alijah Martin and Aberdeen.

When Clayton got hit with his second foul, the Gators were unfazed, in large part because they had prepared in practice for situations of this nature.

“I guess it was yesterday,” Golden said. “A guy was complaining about fouls and I just snapped in practice. I’m like, ‘Yo! We’re not getting these calls tomorrow night, alright? We can’t expect the refs to call certain things. It’s gonna be an absolute war playing these guys. Again, I thought our guys met the match with that fight. There were not many possessions in the game where I felt like we were not the tougher team. I thought out guys did a great job of sustaining that for 40 minutes.”

With Clayton held to a season-low seven points, Alijah Martin and Aberdeen picked up the offensive slack. Martin was good for 18 points, six rebounds, an assist and two steals. In the paint, where the Gators scored 40, Alex Condon had 12 points, 12 rebounds, four assists and two blocked shots.  

As part of Florida’s 56-37 rebounding margin, Rueben Chinyelu grabbed 15. He dominated Tennessee big man Felix Okpara.

At 14-1, the Gators are halfway through the regular season schedule and two games into conference play. The win over Tennessee was an eye-opener but for the Gators, respect is slow coming. Nobody has seen the Gators play a complete game at both ends of the floor. They’ve seen what the Gators can do when the offense heats up and the Tennessee game showed what they can do when everybody is focused defensively.

The Gators are very, very good. There is no denying that, but the weakness of the preseason schedule has the national media touting Auburn, Duke, Iowa State and Alabama. There is no ducking good teams anymore because it’s all Southeastern Conference games for the next two months.

Tomorrow: Part III: The next six games are a mixed bag.