The Florida Gators were eliminated from the SEC Tournament after a 91\u201374 loss to Vanderbilt in the semifinals. Here\u2019s everything head coach Todd Golden, junior forward Alex Condon, and junior forward Thomas Haugh had to say postgame.\n<\/p>\n
OPENING STATEMENT\u00a0\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: Credit to Vandy, I thought they played really great. Played well start to finish. They did a good job beating the scout in terms of their front court guys really letting it fly and make threes. I think they had seven three-pointers from their front court which is going to be tough to beat.\n<\/p>\n
Things that we can control that we did a poor job of. First half, taking care of the ball. 20 points off of our turnovers in the first half. They\u2019re too good of a team to play that way and expect to win.\n<\/p>\n
A lot that we can improve upon over the next couple days before we get ready for the NCAA tournament. As I told the team in the locker room, very disappointed to not be playing on Sunday again. But everything that we \u2014 our goal at the beginning of the year is still in front of us in terms of being able to play for a national championship.\n<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Questions.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0What did you think of the uncontested shots they had today?\n<\/p>\n
ALEX CONDON: Yeah, I think the bigs, they shot it well tonight. We got to do a better job of \u2014 I think in the first game they made a lot of midrange shots that were wide open. I know I need to take some accountability with that. Getting my hand up on their big guys, just making it harder for them. I think they played with a good level of physicality. We have to do the same thing down the other end of the court.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0What is your level of concern right now with the ball security issues, the three-point shots not falling?\n<\/p>\n
THOMAS HAUGH: I mean, I think as a coaching staff, us players, we\u2019re still confident in our shots. I think the thing we didn\u2019t do great today, when we do miss those shots, not grabbing enough boards, leading to second-chance points that we usually get. When we can\u2019t do that and we\u2019re missing shots and turning the ball over, that\u2019s the recipe you\u2019re going to get that we got today.\n<\/p>\n
We need to clean that up in practice and we\u2019ll get back to it next week.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0The game got very physical. Seemed you got frustrated with the physicality. Talk about that.\n<\/p>\n
ALEX CONDON: Yes, I think they made an effort to be really physical from the jump. I know in some of our elbow-catching plays, I was getting elbowed in the back. A lot of rebounding. They made a big emphasis to try and out-physical us. That\u2019s our identity, defense and bringing physicality.\n<\/p>\n
Credit to them. They did a good job. But it\u2019s fueling the fire for us. I think it\u2019s not the worst thing in the world to have a little wake-up call this time of year. I know everyone\u2019s going to be super motivated this week in practice, not let this affect our March performance.\n<\/p>\n
THOMAS HAUGH: Yeah, I mean, I think they had a great game plan coming in to just be a little pest and stuff like that on us. We got to not let that happen when it comes tournament time. Not get flustered by that stuff, get back to who we are.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0What is it that they do well? What makes them so difficult to guard?\n<\/p>\n
THOMAS HAUGH: They have a great offensive team. Tanner bringing the ball up, Duke has been playing college basketball for a while. All of them are pretty skilled. They can shoot quick. Might not be the tallest team, but they all are just hoopers. We didn\u2019t have a good defensive effort out there today. I think the coaches gave us a good game plan. We just didn\u2019t execute it.\n<\/p>\n
THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, thank you, you\u2019re dismissed. We\u2019ll continue with questions for Coach Golden.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0What kind of jumps out to you from Vanderbilt from seeing them earlier until now? Do you feel they\u2019re the kind of team that\u2019s starting to peak at the right time?\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: I mean, like Tommy said, they\u2019re a really talented offensive team. When you have front court players that can shoot, that\u2019s going to be a little bit of a challenge for us. When you have five guys on the floor that can shoot it, it gets really tough.\n<\/p>\n
They went seven for 10 from the three-point line, between Okereke, McGlockton and Washington. You have to tip your cap a little bit. You have to decide against a team like that, that\u2019s definitely much better on the offensive end than defensive end in terms of what you want to live with. We wanted to live with their front court shooting threes. They took advantage of it. They knocked it down. When we tried to switch defenses, they had answers.\n<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t guard them very well the first time either. We played flawless on the offensive end. They were playing well early, kind of tapered out when Duke got hurt. Him coming back is obviously giving them a good lift. But they\u2019re a very good team.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Do you think it was a matter of maybe underestimating Vanderbilt, or did it just kind of take your team a little bit to find that rhythm?\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: Definitely wasn\u2019t underestimating them. We have a lot of respect for them. I think Mark\u2019s a great coach. Mark Byington is a great coach. Have a great program. They do a really good job running good offense.\n<\/p>\n
To be honest, we don\u2019t underestimate opponents. We have a lot of respect for them.\n<\/p>\n
We didn\u2019t play great. Obviously the turnovers and the physicality that they played with bothered us. We usually do that to other teams. Again, credit to them.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Your team won the rebounding battle by double figures. What did they do so well defensively to limit your front court?\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: In regards to our second chances or just overall?\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Second chances.\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: It\u2019s hard to tell. Kind of in the heat of the moment just watching. They did a good job being physical, for sure. I think they knocked us off our spots. When we get 20 offensive rebounds, in theory we should be scoring 25 or even a bucket more on that. We only had 14 second-chance points.\n<\/p>\n
We fought hard on the glass. We got back over 55%, almost 60% of our misses, which is insane. We did a very poor job of taking advantage of that and getting second chances, finishing our second chances I should say.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0What did you think were the issues with the uncontested shots, wide-open threes they had?\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: We gave them to the bigs. We talked about that. We got to live with something. Ball screen coverage, they\u2019re popping, not rolling. Thought we did a great job on their perimeter for three. Nickel was one for six. Tanner only got one up. Miles was one for three. We did a good job that way.\n<\/p>\n
It was, again, their bigs taking advantage, popping in the ball screen. I\u2019ll live with big guys shooting some uncontested shots. Okereke, a guy we should have probably tried to take away more. McGlockton, solid three-point shooter. Cable, not great. Did a great job today. When Jalen Washington is throwing them in, it\u2019s one of those days. Credit to them.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0The last time you lost was January 24th to Auburn. You had a really good bounce-back. How did you make that transition from that loss to winning so many? How is that going to have to happen again?\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: We\u2019re pretty consistent, as you know. We\u2019re just going to go back to practicing hard and doing what we do, focusing on defending, rebounding, taking care of the ball.\n<\/p>\n
My biggest disappointment of the last two days was our ball security. That\u2019s an area that we have been making shots. We\u2019ve been pretty good offensively, top 10 offense all year. We can\u2019t be a team that just gives up offensive possessions.\n<\/p>\n
Again, in the first half I think we had nine or something. It led to 20 points for Vanderbilt. I mean, you\u2019re not giving yourself a chance to win with that ball security issue that\u2019s getting them 20 points in transition, free looks. They\u2019re too good of a team and they\u2019re going to take advantage of that every time.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0A lot of the big picture discourse will be about you guys as a No. 1 seed. Do you feel like you\u2019ve done enough this season to secure the fourth No. 1?\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: You know what, I do. I\u2019d be curious who the third team is in that conversation.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0Houston.\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: Houston? Okay, yeah. Looking at Quad 1 wins, I think we\u2019re in a good spot that way. Analytically, the predictive metrics, whether it\u2019s KenPom, Torvik, we\u2019re top four in all those by a wide margin. It\u2019s really not close.\n<\/p>\n
We had our early-season tough start where we played really good, competitive opponents, and road or semi-away venues where we fell a little bit short. We haven\u2019t lost in 54 days or something leading up to this game, playing some of the best basketball in America. I do believe we\u2019ve done enough to be the fourth 1 seed. But we\u2019ll find out tomorrow night.\n<\/p>\n
Q.\u00a0It\u2019s been kind of mentioned, but can you talk about more so how this game can be similar to that Auburn game, using it at the right time. You hate losing, using it the right way.\n<\/p>\n
TODD GOLDEN: Again, we get back tonight, we\u2019ll take tomorrow off. Probably watch the Selection Show together. Get back to practice on Monday.\n<\/p>\n
Again, we try to be very consistent with our program. We\u2019re not going to be reactive in regards to when we\u2019re winning that we don\u2019t practice hard, and we kind of go with the flow, we\u2019re okay, as soon as we lose we\u2019re going to change everything, be really aggressive in practice.\n<\/p>\n
Part of what makes our program what it is is our consistency. We are not going to change a lot. We are going to get back to defending, rebounding, taking care of the ball.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Florida Gators were eliminated from the SEC Tournament after a 91\u201374 loss to Vanderbilt in the semifinals.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":63093,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-192116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=192116"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/192116\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/63093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=192116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=192116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=192116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}