No.12 Florida defeated South Carolina 76-62 on Tuesday night inside the O’Dome, improving to 20-6 (11-2 SEC) on the 2025/26 season.

Junior forward Alex Condon led the way with 20 points, 10 rebounds, and four assists while junior center Rueben Chinyelu added 15 points and 17 rebounds in the contest.

Here’s everything head coach Todd Golden had to say postgame.

Opening Statement

Golden: “Yeah, I thought we did a nice job tonight, you know, just keeping a tough, scrappy South Carolina team at arm’s distance today. A lot of things that we got to clean up prior to going on the road this weekend, but we did a good job controlling the game. We obviously did a great job on the boards, plus-17. I thought we needed to do a little better job taking care of the ball, but defensively, we gave up some stuff in the paint, but our game-plan was to limit their three-point opportunities, and, you know, try to close any volatility out of the game, and our guys did a really good job of that. And, you know, up 22 with three minutes to go, I thought we played a pretty good game overall.”

On the defense being solid all game:

Golden: “Yeah, I think our guys have done a really good job of understanding that we have incredible defensive talent, physicality, and when we pour into that, it makes the rest of the game easier, and I thought we did really good job of that tonight. We held them under 40 (percent) from the field, 21 (percent) from three. Fouled a little bit late in the second half that we’ll live with that the way the game was going, and we’ve turned ourselves into a pretty good defensive team, and we got to continue that if we want to reach the goals that we’re striving for.”

On halfcourt defensive changes the Gamecocks made compared to last contest: 

Golden: “I thought they were just a little more physical than the first time we played them. Other than that, I don’t think they did a whole lot. Honestly, we had a lot of turnovers tonight, but a lot of them were, you know, kind of 50/50 plays where, you know, if one, the pass is one-inch this way it turns into a dunk. Like, we were making what I thought were aggressive turnovers, which we’ll live with in a game like tonight. And we were 24-for-43, I mean, we shot well over 50 (percent) from two. So we did a good job that way. We didn’t shoot the three-ball very well, but over 70 from the free throw line, solid, you know. And then the game was not very fast. I think that was one thing that looking back on, like, we were not able to control, and the pace and the tempo and make sure we’re getting up and down. We want to play games with possessions in the 70s. Tonight, this was definitely in the 60s, think it was like 69 or something like that. So that’s a little bit why our offensive output was down.”

On Chinyelu and Condon coming back and entering program record books when they could have gone to the NBA: 

Golden: “Yeah, I mean, I’m not really sure of the NBA part about it, but just having these guys in our program makes me feel really good on a daily basis. And we talked about it a lot, we have incredible players. These guys next to me are two of the best players in America, and they’ve worked really hard to get there. Their consistency, their unselfishness, their toughness, and belief, it’s allowed us to grow into one of the best programs in America while they’ve been here. And these guys deserve a lot of credit for that.”

On how they handled South Carolina from the 47-point result to how they played tonight? 

Golden: “We did a good job. Like I said, we weren’t perfect but I thought our minds were in the right place. I thought our intent was really good that way, and I agree with what Alex said. Obviously South Carolina’s record isn’t great but they have some talent, like they have good players. Our performance a few weeks ago was incredible, we played like by far the best team in America on their floor, so it would have been hard to back that up with another similar performance. Obviously coach Parish is a really good coach, they wanna do some different things to make this game more difficult for us, and I thought they did with the way they slowed the game down. They really tried to emphasize getting the ball inside, they didn’t do that at their place. Credit to them for the way they attacked tonight, but I thought our guys did a really good job of incrementally pushing that lead out over the course of 40 minutes. I feel like there’s an expectation right now with our program that if we’re not up by 15 at halftime, if we don’t win by 25, that something isn’t going right, but we’re in the best league in America. I still feel like being up 10 at halftime, up 22 with three minutes to go, we played pretty dang well. We didn’t play our best, but even when we’re not at our best I think we’re really good.”