Todd Golden admits to being 'very surprised' by blowout of Tennessee

Todd Golden and the Florida Gators achieved a monumental win over No. 1 Tennessee on Tuesday evening in Gainesville, controlled the contest and making history at the end of it all.

For the first time since 1968, a team ranked No. 1 in the college basketball AP poll lost by 25+ points. Two late free throws meant Florida wound up beating the Volunteers by 30, which will go down as a staple victory for the Gators early in SEC play.

Despite expecting the best from his team, Florida’s utter dominance over Tennessee surprised their head coach, as Golden explained following the victory.

“I would’ve been very surprised,” Golden responded, asked about what he would’ve thought about the potential of blowing-out Tennessee prior to the SEC battle on Tuesday, via The Field of 68 After Dark. “You know, obviously this was a team that we have great respect for. They played great all year. Getting them on our home floor, getting them in the O-Dome. It was a game that we expected to win, just being honest. Going into the game, we felt like we had the ability to win the game. We knew it was going to be really tough, and that we had to meet the challenge. But we had a lot of confidence going into it.

“I thought we had a great couple days of prep, coming off that Kentucky loss, and in a way, probably helped prepare us even more. We definitely focused on the defense in the past couple of days.”

Regardless of the win, there will be much for the Gators to work on moving forward. They finished with 73 points, but Florida did not have the best offensive day. Just 30% of their three-point shots went down, well below the season average. Alijah Martin was the leading scorer with 18 points and Denzel Aberdeen was the only other Gators player in double figures with 16.

The real story from Gainesville was how poorly Tennessee played offensively. Rick Barnes‘ squad made just 12 shots all night, making 21.4% of shots from the floor. Looking at the three-point numbers were even worse, going 4-29 from deep.

Being the No. 1 team in the country was no mistake for Tennessee, previously being the lone undefeated team remaining in college basketball. People in Knoxville will be hoping this was an off night and one the team can flush down the toilet. Next up for them will be a return to Austin for Barnes, facing off against Texas.

As for Florida, they’ve now improved to 14-1 on the season after starting off conference play with a high-scoring loss to Kentucky in Rupp Arena. No better way to get back on the right track, making history in the process. Todd Golden has this team humming, for sure.

On3’s Griffin McVeigh contributed to this article.