The Florida Gators turned college basketball on its head just a few days ago with their dominant 30-point victory over top ranked Tennessee, marking the most lopsided victory over an AP No.1 team since UCLA beat Houston 101-69 in the 1968 final four, according to Josh Dubow of the AP.
While the win was an outstanding effort and helps Florida in more ways than one, the Gators are focused on making sure they don’t get complacent as there’s much more to play for in 2025.
“It was a good, hard practice yesterday. Our guys understand that we’re not satisfied at all,” Florida head coach Todd Golden said on Friday. “We kind of talked about it after our Carolina win, ‘This can’t be like the highlight of our season. It was a great win. It was an awesome environment. It was a great game, but if we were talking about something in December as being a great highlight, we wouldn’t have had the season we wanted to have.’ We had that same conversation after Tuesday night. It was an incredible win. Obviously a great program-building win, speaks volumes about where we are at and how good our guys are playing. But if we’re in April and we’re talking about our win against Tennessee in January, like we haven’t done what we want to do. The guys, I think, understand very well that it was a great win, but if we don’t win tomorrow, nobody will remember it.”
The No.8 Florida Gators (14-1, 1-1 SEC) are looking to continue their momentum on Saturday night as they take on the Arkansas Razorbacks (11-4, 0-2 SEC) in Fayetteville.
Road games have always been difficult in the SEC, but with the strength of the conference in 2024, road matchups seem increasingly more challenging.
“Just need to continue to put together really good efforts,” Florida head coach Todd Golden said on Friday. “Obviously, the challenge, in this league, with going on the road … it’s always been hard in college basketball to go on the road and be successful, but I think this league, this season is even more difficult that way. Going on the road to Arkansas, obviously 0-2, but very talented and a very good team, is going to be a really big challenge for us.”
Arkansas was a ranked basketball team before their 0-2 start in conference play. The Razorbacks lean on Kentucky transfer Adou Thiero, who leads Arkansas with 16.9 points per game while adding six rebounds per contest. The plan, according to Golden, is to keep Thiero from getting to the basket and drawing fouls.
“I think for him he is very explosive and he’s a great attacker downhill,” Golden said on Thiero. “He’s gonna be a tough cover for us. Our frontcourt is gonna have to do a good job on him. They’re playing him at the 4 and he’s one of those kind of unique hybrid forwards that can play the 3 or the 4 and he’s kind of a matchup problem regardless of who you have on him. But if we can limit his room twos and kind of make him more of a skilled shooter finisher, not allow him to get to the foul line, those are going to be the things that I think will help us against him…I think Thiero has had a really, really good year and has been someone that’s been consistent for them across the board. So it will be a good challenge for us. We gotta do a good job on him.”
Arkansas has a trio of guards in Boogie Fland, D.J. Wagner, and Johnell Davis that combine for 34.9 points per game and 10.4 assists.
“I think they obviously have gotten really good play out of DJ and Boogie Fland in their backcourt all year,” Golden said. “Not so much in these past two games, which is they probably haven’t been successful so far in the league play. But they’re both really, really talented players. They’re different in terms of how they have success. We just have to be able to do a good job on those guys to be successful and win the game. Johnell had a good night the other night, hit three 3s in the first half, started showing a little more scoring prowess for them. Those three guys on the perimeter, we have to do a really good job on.”
Golden wants to simplify the gameplan vs Arkansas as he felt they tried to be too perfect and too technical vs Kentucky, where Florida lost their only game of the season to date after allowing 106 points.
“I think we have kind of a better plan going into this game than we did against Kentucky. I think we tried to be too perfect and a little too technical against Kentucky with our defensive game plan, and we didn’t end up being good at anything,” Golden said. “I think we’re going to be a little more, I don’t wanna say broad, but just a little more focused on effort and just taking away one or two things, as opposed to trying to take away everything. So hopefully that’ll make it a little simpler for us, and then we just gotta make sure we do a good job on the glass again, and hopefully we turn them over a little bit. They do a good job taking care of the ball, but we just have to do a really good job protecting the rim and protecting the paint. That’s going to be something that will dictate and determine how we do. If we can do a good job of limiting their rim 2s and making them settle for mid-ranges and stuff like that, that’ll give us a better chance to win.”
Do you know what Golden meant by saying they got “too technical “ on d against UK? It would be interesting to hear his explanation of what that means.
Thanks for the story!