Playing with a high level of confidence after comfortable wins against Mississippi State and South Carolina the Florida Gators rolled once again at home over the Oklahoma Sooner coming away with a blowout 85-63 win. With a 22-point win this was a dominant performance from the Gators but the final score doesn’t even tell the story of how out of reach this game was for Oklahoma as both teams turned to their bench midway through the second, essentially showing a white flag waving as both teams allowed their second units to get some valuable reps. After completing their fifth straight win the Gators improved to 23-3 on the season and 10-3 in the SEC, holding on to third place in the conference with a chance at climbing all the way to first still a possibility.
Leading Once Again
With the regular season coming to a close in a couple of weeks All-American discussion heated up once again, and with several players seemingly locks (Duke’s Cooper Flagg, Auburn’s Johni Broome, Marquette’s Kam Jones, perhaps) much of conversation surrounded who deserved the final spots and one name that continually came up was Walter Clayton. It’s unsure if he heard the discussion or not but he put on a performance like all the voters were watching putting up 18 points in style, with most coming in the first half while the Gators were running away with a twenty point lead that sealed the game early. Clayton could have finished with more but took it easy after that stretch and played less minutes than normal, but he made his impact early with the kinds of deep threes off the dribble that he has become known for. With the Gators ranked highly in the AP Poll and competing at the top of the SEC, Walter Clayton will certainly have his chance at an All-American spot–particularly if he keeps playing like this.
Heating Up
Urban Klavzar didn’t play much of a role during the first half of the season but has come on in the second and is only seeing his minutes increase, and he took full advantage of it against Oklahoma with a season high 10 points off the bench. Most notably he was 2-4 from three, meaning that in SEC play he has gone 9-14 from deep, a truly remarkable number particularly due to the fact it’s not like his looks have been wide open looks. In addition to the shooting, Klavzar brings a high level of basketball IQ, passing ability, and ball handling, and it’s looking like Golden could see quite a logjam in the backcourt as he tries to figure out what rotations to play. Klavzar saw 22 minutes in this one due to garbage time starting early, and you might see him push for that kind of role moving forward.
Locking Down
As much as Florida has been a run and gun transition team this year that has put up a lot of points, Todd Golden is inherently a defensive guy and he will be ecstatic with the way Florida defended on Tuesday holding Oklahoma to 63 points. Of course, as mentioned earlier the final score doesn’t totally indicate how exactly the game was going before garbage time and really a more accurate score to show just how well the Gators played defensively was the first half score where the Gators allowed Oklahoma to post just 24 points. Florida’s energy guarding the ball was palpable and if there ever was dribble penetration there were secondary defenders flying in from the weak side to disrupt with their length and it forced a number of bad passes and turnovers from the Oklahoma guards who never felt comfortable. When people first think of Florida it might be the scoring of Walter Clayton, the transition attack, or the offensive rebounding, but Golden is still fighting to make sure defense is part of the identity.
Final Thoughts
This was a program win for Florida that was built on the backs of multiple incredible evaluation jobs. Florida was without one of their top players in Alex Condon and still looked more talented at just about every position on the floor, and Florida’s depth shined through when they got down the line to Urban Klavzar and Micah Handlogten. Florida is at the point of the season where it would be easy to lose focus and maybe slip up against a bottom of the pack SEC team but that hasn’t been the case whatsoever and they have been controlling the games they have been favored in.