‘Elite mentality and effort’: Todd Golden reacts to win over UGA

GAINESVLLE, Fla. — No. 5 Florida ran away with an 89-59 win over Georgia on Saturday behind five Gators in double figures and a season-high 18 turnovers forced on defense. UF has now won 12 straight against the Bulldogs, the longest streak in series history and tied for UF’s second-longest vs. any SEC opponent.

Here’s everything Florida coach Todd Golden said after the game.

Todd Golden Q&A

Opening statement:

TODD GOLDEN: “Just super proud of our guys and our staff. I thought they did a great job preparing for this game. This is a really good Georgia team that we played. They obviously should have beat Auburn at home last week, been a Top-25 team. The thing that I’m most happy about is that we came out with a great mentality, similar to last Saturday against Texas.

“And what we’re trying to impress upon our team is if we bring that elite mentality and effort level in every game, especially at home, we’re going to be really tough to play with. Got to do it on the road, obviously, as well. But in these opportunities, where you get good teams on your home floor, you got to take advantage of it. I thought we did that today.”

On Walter Clayton Jr.’s performance:

TODD GOLDEN: “He’s a fantastic player. He does a great job of playing with good pace and patience. I don’t want to say it comes easy to him, but a little bit. He sees things other guys don’t and is able to get to his spots. I think he played with great poise. I thought his floor game was fantastic: five assists, one turnover, passed up a couple shots that he turned into assists for other guys or some two-point field goals. But he’s being discussed as an All-American for a reason. He deserves that conversation, one of the best guards in America and continues to deliver for us in big moments.”

On Florida forcing 18 turnovers:

TODD GOLDEN: “I thought our defense got us going in the first half. I thought our activity on the defensive end, we got some good run-outs, which really got us going. The building came alive. Before I continue, our crowd has been amazing, absolutely amazing, especially on these weekend games. They help create such a great home-court advantage for us. Just the way the energy in the building, just right before tip you can feel it, and they’ve carried us in a big way at home. So I want to say thank you to the support that our players and our program are getting from the fans, especially in our home arena. But to the point that we were discussing about defense, we had 20 deflections in the first half, and that’s a number that we have not gotten close to for a long time. I think they had 14 turnovers in the first half, and we were just really able to open up the game because of our defensive activity.”

On Clayton setting the tone in the first half with five steals:

TODD GOLDEN: “I think him and Martin were incredibly active defensively in the first half and provided a lot of those run-outs for us. But I thought Coach McCray and Coach Andrzejek did a good job putting together our defensive game plan. We were on their stuff. We forced a lot of turnovers, which is something that we haven’t done a lot this year. We have the last two games, but we knew with them, the way they play, they really want to attack the paint, attack the rim. We did a good job keeping them out of there, forced them to make more skilled passes, which we were able to deflect or intercept and turn it off of.”

On the Gators limiting Georgia’s Asa Newell:

TODD GOLDEN: “Yeah, he’s a fantastic talent, but we have a lot of pride on our team, and our frontcourt players have a lot of pride. They know that he’s on draft boards and being discussed as a top prospect. Anytime our guys go up against a player like that, they accept it as a challenge. And I thought we did a great job neutralizing him tonight.”

On Florida’s strong start defensively:

TODD GOLDEN: “I thought we did a good job with our full-court pressure; we turned them over three times. And then just with our ball-screen defense, we did a good job tagging, making them throw out and across a couple that turned into out of bounds and turned into turnovers that way. But, yeah, again, just that activity defensively definitely got us off to a great start.”

On the latest with Micah Handlogten:

TODD GOLDEN: “To his credit he’s had an incredible recovery, and I think he was ready probably a little sooner than he anticipated just because he had no setbacks and obviously that’s a serious injury and you know because of our medical team and the medical team at the SEC he was able to get to the hospital, and then surgery went really well and it ended up being a pretty normal recovery for such a tough injury and Micah has been able to be back practicing with us for a while now and it’s a very emotional thing, it’s a very emotional decision and I can understand why someone in his shoes might have second thoughts. I think he had kind of gotten himself to the point where he was ready, he actually had a great practice yesterday, and you know as he continued to think about it he just had some second thoughts and the bottom line is with a situation like that you have to be all the way in if you’re gonna come back, and he understood, he knows, we weren’t pressuring him into this decision this was something we told him, this was up to him, when he wants to come back. I think he was really excited about the possibility of playing and then once it became real, I think he just had some more thoughts about it, and it is what it is, we would love to him out there but at the same time we understand the injury was really severe and it’s gonna be his decision on when he comes back.”

On whether Handlogten is out for the season:

TODD GOLDEN: “It’s a good question. I think it’s gonna be fluid. As of this moment, I would say he’s probably out. But he could wake up tomorrow and call me and say, ‘Hey man, that looked fun. Maybe let’s get out there next Saturday.’ But we’re gonna let him create his own timeline for returning. Whether that’s next week or next year is really gonna be up to him.”

On Florida’s rebounding performance:

TODD GOLDEN: “I thought we did a great job in the first half, we were only up plus-four in the first half but I thought, first of all, we didn’t miss many shots in the first half, so we only had a few opportunities on the offensive glass. I thought our defensive rebounding was pretty good. To be honest in the second half I thought we relaxed a little bit on the defensive glass, we weren’t pinning as much, we weren’t blocking out as well and we allowed them to get some second chances, they continued to play hard credit to them but we talk about it a lot, and that was a big thing with the Missouri game a couple of weeks ago, one of the strengths of our team is we generally win the rebounding battle and that creates a wider margin for error for us, and in the Missouri game, I think we lost the boards by one or two, we didn’t create, but over the last couple of games with the exception of South Carolina we have. If we’re gonna outrebound teams by seven, eight, nine or 10 we’re gonna have a really good chance to win. It’s going to continue to be important part of our system and the way we play.”

On how quickly Handlogten could get up to speed:

TODD GOLDEN: “He’s healthy. He’s been practicing and playing five on five in practice. I mean, he’s been going up against some really good SEC bigs every day in practice and we wouldn’t have allowed him to make that initial decision if we didn’t think he was ready. I think he could play. But again, it’s up to him. I want to make that very clear. We are not trying to pressure him to be out there if he’s not comfortable. Do I think he could be out there playing, yeah, but again he almost missed half the year. The game has changed a little bit. These guys have kind of have the ability to decide their paths and with his situation being so unique and that injury being so severe we have a lot of patience and understanding with his decision making, what he’s going through.”

On how overwhelming UF can be for opposing defenses:

TODD GOLDEN: “I mean, we got a lot of weapons. And I do think in this building specifically, we obviously can get it going pretty good in here. And my biggest thing, like we discussed earlier, is mentality and approach. And if we play hard, and we’re physical and we’re being proactive and not reactive, I think generally good things will happen in here. But when we shoot the ball well to start the game like that and our defensive activity is the way it is, we’re not going to be beat in here is the bottom line. But you’re not always gonna start the game going 10 for 12 from the field or whatever it was and make every shot, but we had great momentum and again, I thought the crowd gave us a big lift today.”

On Florida’s players not being affected by the early whistles: 

TODD GOLDEN: “It probably bothered me more than the players. But our guys, they did a good job. Condon picked up a couple of early ones. He was in foul trouble most of the night, but we were still able to get 24 good minutes out of him. And to your point, I thought our guys handled the first four minutes of the game well. And the refs, they did a great job. There was just an emotional start and we were getting kind of fired up, getting in the moment. But I thought our guys kept their heads well.”

On Walter Clayton Jr. scoring three straight field goals:

TODD GOLDEN: “We called a timeout when it was 19 and just told the guys. Our halftime talk was just like, hey, let’s try to win this game by 40, right? We’re up 25, let’s try to win by 40. Let’s not just find a way to kind of bleed this thing down to zeros on the clock. And we did not come out with that approach to start the game. We weren’t physical, we weren’t rebounding. We were kind of not going through the motions, but we weren’t playing with the same level of intensity as we were in the first half. So called time out, reminded our guys, what our goal was and what the hopes were in terms of the way we played. And from that point on, you know, we outscored them by 11 the rest of the half. So we answered. I thought Walter was super smooth and really good in the second half. And all of our guys, for the most part, played really well.” 

On what UF will work on with the week off:

TODD GOLDEN: “We have plenty of things that we gotta work on and get better. Gotta finish a little better inside. We gotta make sure we continue to defend at a high level. And we gotta make sure we get really healthy, you know, going into the last 12 games of the regular season. So this break comes at a good time for us. We’re starting to get a little banged up, a little sick. And now with this midweek bye, I feel like we should be able to kind of get back organized and ready to go for what’s going to be a war next Saturday in Knoxville.”