By Ken Cross
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Florida guard Alijah Martin scored 11 of his 17 points to pace the Gators into a fast 25-11 start and the defense shut down Georgia in posting an 89-59 decision in O’Connell Center Saturday afternoon.
While Walter Clayton, Jr. joined Martin with 17 points, forward Thomas Haugh nailed a double-double with 13 points and 11 rebounds in 24 minutes. Will Richard scored 16 and Alex Condon netted 14 points and eight boards as Florida shot 53.1 percent from the field and outrebounded, Georgia, 39-32.
“I enjoy when these two go for double-doubles,” laughed Martin. “It puts the pressure on me to get the rebounds.”
Florida immediately jumped on Georgia’s backcourt with full-court pressure as it scored 12 points off of eight quick Georgia turnovers in the first eight minutes.
“We had 20 deflections in the first half, and that’s a number that we have not gotten close to for a long time,” said Florida head coach Todd Golden. “I think they had 14 turnovers in the first half, and we were just really able to open up the game because of our defensive activity.”
The Gators penned a story of turning defense into offense as the team shared the ball once they were into transition or half-court sets. Guard Will Richard posted three triples in an 11-2 Gators run to give them a 38-19 lead which they turned into a 51-26 advantage at halftime.
The quick start was welcomed after the gators trailed South Carolina for the entire game on Wednesday until Will Richard’s layup with five seconds remaining gave them a 70-69 win.
“We just didn’t want to come out slow,” explained Martin. “We have had a tendency to come out slow and tonight we weren’t going to do that and once when we got the ball rolling, we just kept it going.”
After RJ Godfrey scored eight points in an 8-0 run to cut the Gators to a 55-36 lead at 15:24, Golden called a timeout before Walter Clayton, Jr., recentered the team by scoring quick six points before Denzel Aberdeen drove the right base line for the reverse layup and a 67-37 lead with 11:15 to play.
“(We) called time out, reminded our guys what our goal was and what the hopes were in terms of the way we played,” Golden said. “From that point on, we outscored them by 11 the rest of the half.”
Florida’s strong start made it a possibility to try to finish playing the 40 minutes with the same intensity.
“Our halftime talk was, “Hey, let’s try to win this by 40 not kind of try ot bleed this thing down to zeroes on the clock,’ and we did not come out with that approach to start,” explained Golden. “We were not physical, we were not rebounding. We were not going through the motions, but we were not playing with the same level of intensity we were in the first half.”
Georgia freshman phenom and leading scorer Asa Newell never was able to get started as he was 0-for-7 in the first half and did not score his first basket until a slam off the rebound with 15:49 remaining. He finished 4-of-14 from the field with six rebounds in 23 minutes.
“He was a big guy in our scout,” said Condon. “He had been playing pretty well, so we just tried to keep the ball out of his left hand.”
Richard and Haugh popped in back-to-back threes on the left wing to give Florida a 75-41 lead with 9:30 remaining. Richard was StephCurry-Esque in knowing his shot had fallen as he turned and run back down the floor to defend before it went in.
This was Florida’s 12th consecutive win over Georgia plus the Gators scored 29 points on 18 forced Bulldogs turnovers.
Blue Cain led Georgia with ten points while the Gators held the Bulldogs to 35.6 percent from thee field and only 5-of-21 from three.