It wasn’t always pretty but in a physical and emotional contest that went until nearly 11:30 PM local time in Nashville the Florida Gators held on for an SEC Tournament win over the Georgia Bulldogs by a score of 85-80. It was the Bulldogs who held the lead for much of the game but in the second half Florida’s depth and pace started to take over and once they took the lead, they never relented. With the win the Gators will advance to play Alabama, the third seed in the SEC Tournament. This was Florida’s first win in the SEC Tournament since 2021, a quick but disappointing streak they will be happy to break.
Crazy Stat Line
Forward Tyrese Samuel finished Thursday’s game with one of the craziest stat lines you’ll have seen from a Gator in years. Was it his 17 points? No, not that. Was it his 15 rebounds? No, but that was a career high–which is notable. It was his shooting from the free throw line.
Entering the SEC Tournament Tyrese Samuel wasn’t known as much of a free throw shooting hitting only 56% of his charity tosses on the season. However, no one could be prepared for what happened Thursday.
Samuel finished the game an astonishing 9-23 from the free throw line, setting the record for free throw misses in an SEC Tournament game. 9-23 equals 39%, a crazy number to go alongside massive amounts of attempts. Obviously you would love to see him shoot a better percentage, but Samuel was also playing so well that he was trusted to be out there for much of the game even with the struggles–though ultimately they took him out in the final minutes when they knew Georgia would continue to intentionally foul him. The free throw misses are quite the story, but Samuel was also impactful as a scorer and on the glass and it’s the charity stripes that are the achilles heel for a player that is still having a tremendous season.
Defensive Adjustments
Having already played Georgia twice this season the Gators had an idea of what the Bulldogs were looking to do and they came in with a plan. For starters, they didn’t send many double teams on Russel Tchewa post ups even though he was able to score efficiently against the Gators earlier in the season. He finished with only 8 points after scoring 15 in each of the two prior games and was largely slowed down one-on-one by Micah Handlogten. Florida’s even bigger adjustment was how they guarded side pick and rolls by using an “ice” strategy where the ball handler’s defender gets parallel to the sideline and denies the ball handler by getting to the middle of the court. They would then trap the ball handler while the three other players on the floor shot passing lanes and looked for steals and it worked nearly to perfection. Georgia struggled to handle this and threw the ball away a number of times which turned into transition opportunities for the Gators. This is not a defense the Gators have used much this season and it was a clear adjustment and it was nice to see them use the time off before the SEC Tournament to put in a wrinkle like this.
The One To Start And The One To Finish
Early in the game Florida struggled to get any offensive rhythm until Will Richard took over. He banged 3 of his first 4 three-point attempts in the early minutes and followed it up with a strong layup to have 11 of the Gators’ first 16 points. Richard isn’t someone who always takes command of the offense when points are needed but with the Bulldogs taking away Walter Clayton and Zyon Pullin early in the game with their zone, someone else needed to step up and that player was Richard. While Clayton was quiet early it’s hard to keep an explosive player down and Clayton took over in the second half finishing with a team high 22 points while adding 3 steals playing a key role in the “ice” defense discussed earlier. For a team to go deep in postseason play they need their best players to play at the highest level and while it might have been a slow start, eventually Clayton performed to that level and more.
Final Thoughts
Survive and advance. Nothing about this game was particularly pretty and there wasn’t much of a rhythm, starting with the heavily delayed start time due to Ole Miss-Texas A&M running long and Florida-Georgia still reaching nearly two and a half hours. However, this time of the year isn’t about playing beautiful basketball, it’s about finding ways to win and the Gators did just that with their ability to create steals (something they haven’t done a lot this year) and get second chance opportunities on the glass (something they have done a ton of this year). They’ll look to find another way to win tomorrow when they take on Alabama.