Everything Todd Golden said after Florida's 93-68 win over Southern Illinois

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators improved to 6-0 on Friday with their 93-68 win over Southern Illinois. Todd Golden’s team was led by a 32-point performance from Alijah Martin, including a career-high eight 3-pointers — half of UF’s season-high 16 treys.

Here’s everything Golden said after the game.

RELATED: Takeaways from the Florida Gators’ 93-68 win over Southern Illinois

Todd Golden Q&A

Opening statement: 

TODD GOLDEN: “Pumped, pumped the way we played. I thought we played pretty well tonight. Had a good stretch back half of the first half where, you know, we kind of put it all together from the defensive side, clean rebounds, getting out and running in transition, obviously, shooting the ball well, and we’re able to stretch that lead out pretty good in the first half. I thought second half, you know, played very well offensively. Again, have not been able to play 40 complete minutes defensively or on the glass. I thought we let ourselves off the hook that way. But again, you know, those are probably hyper-critical thoughts after a 25-point win. Really thought our guys did a good job start to finish tonight.”

On if that stretch at the end of the first half was the best they’d played all year: 

TODD GOLDEN: “Yeah, I think so, for sure. It took us a little bit. You know, to Southern Illinois’s credit, I think they’re really physical defensively. They do a good job of testing you on penetration and trying to keep us out of the paint and I didn’t think we were physical enough attacking it early on. And, you know, we just started getting cleaner stops, cleaner rebounds, and got out in transition. When we do that we’re tough to stop. I think it started with Condo’s, you know, Denzel threw Condo that alley-oop and then on the next play, we got a steal and run-out, Martin got a dunk, and then we started hitting a bunch of shots. And, you know, as we talked a lot about, if we are able to shoot well, which we did tonight, you know, we’re going to be tough to beat.”

On the defensive stretch in the first half:

TODD GOLDEN: “Yeah you know, we track kills, we call them kills when we get three stops in a row. And at one point in the first half, we had got nine stops in a row, so three kills, and I think it was at some point in that segment that you’re discussing, and, you know, for basketball, it’s all connected, right? You know, the defensive end is connected to the offensive end. When you’re not getting stops, and you’re having to pull the ball out of the net every time, it’s hard to get a good push when you do get stops, clean rebounds or steals, it makes it a lot easier to run on your opponent, you know, and that’s kind of the message for this group, is when we when we guard, well, we’re going to be really, really good offensively, you know? And that really showed up in that moment, and we had a good segment that way in the second half as well to kind of get it up to 30, but I just want to see that more consistent over 40 minutes.”

On if Alijah’s performance was more what they expected, a big-time three-pointer shooter:

TODD GOLDEN: “Yeah, no, I think he is, and we just have not collectively shot it well until tonight. And, you know, I think Alijah, he’s done it before. He had a really good scrimmage against FIU where he shot it well, made a ton of shots. And, you know, tonight, obviously he had the hot hand. And what I was most impressed about with our team’s performance is I thought we did a really good job, and kind of talking about it before the game, of finding joy in the success of your teammates, and our guys, you know, shared the ball really, really well tonight. Obviously, 25 assists, six turnovers. You know, we can, we can complain about the rebounding in the second half, we can complain about some of the lazy defensive plays in the second half. But when you have that assist to turnover ratio as a team – 25 assists is really, really hard to do. Obviously, you need some good perimeter shooting for that to happen, but also when you take care of the ball, you know, with only six turnovers all night, you know, it says a lot about the way your team plays, you know, for each other. So that was what, as a staff, we were really pleased about after the game.”

On Alijah Martin getting to know his teammates in practice, how it’s evolved:

TODD GOLDEN: “You know, it started on his visit, and, you know, we just feel pretty good about the way we construct rosters and team, and we knew when we brought Alijah in, you know, on his visit, that for it to work, him, Will and Walt have to get along, plain and simple. You know, it wasn’t going to make a lot of sense, if they weren’t going to be able to play with each other, or, you know, yeah, just root for each other. And all three of those guys got along really well, and that gave us great confidence that, you know, he would be able to integrate himself pretty easily into the group. You know, he was a very good leader, he’s a very good competitor. He practices at a high, high level every day. And, you know, he’s taking on more of a vocal leadership role as well. I think Will is really good that way also, you know, Walt’s really good by example, and, you know, Martin kind of meets in the middle with both, you know, kind of vocal leadership as well as leading by example and how hard he competes.” 

On forcing SIU deep into the shot clock:

TODD GOLDEN: “Obviously, we’ve talked about a lot, the way we’ve tried to put more of an emphasis on the defensive side of the ball this year. And a lot of that has to do with being tough and guarding deep into the clock. And, you know, I think we’ve done a really good job over the course of the first five games of forcing teams to take tough shots. You know, Southern Illinois has some good players. We held them to 35% from the field. Held that 3-point number down, you know. Just from a mass standpoint, we made one more three than they took. So we obviously won the three point game pretty comfortably. But yeah, just having good, solid defensive possessions is really important to us. And I thought the first half we did a really good job. Second half, again, we didn’t finish it rebounding well enough. But overall, you know, a decent effort that way.”

On UF making 16 3-pointers:

TODD GOLDEN: “We’ve kind of thought about, ‘Alright, the way we played before tonight, we were 5-0, we had every game outside of double figures in terms of the margin. We’ve been able to play and win at a pretty high level so far. But we had not had a night like tonight where, you know, we’re getting good looks and we’re knocking them down, and we’re stretching it out for 40 minutes. We did in the first half against FSU. We were able to build an 18-point lead. We did not shoot the ball in the second half, they were able to come back on us a little bit. Whereas tonight, we were able to do it in both halves, and especially in this building. You know, I think if we can shoot the ball like that, we’re gonna be tough to beat in here.”

On Alijah turning around before his last 3 went in:

TODD GOLDEN: “He had it going. That was like the one skill I had as a player. So I’ve been in that moment maybe once or twice, and it’s a great feeling. But he just really was nuclear tonight, and really happy for him. He’s putting in a lot of work, a lot of extra time, and he treats this like a profession, and I’m happy for him and the success he had tonight.”

On Will Richard’s ability to drive to the rim aggressively:

TODD GOLDEN: “Definitely. It’s super important for us to be the best we can be in the way we play with kind of our ball screen motion that we run, what we call our early game. And he’s continued to improve year after year in terms of his ability to put the ball on the deck and make decisions to make plays. Three assists, one turnover tonight, and he hasn’t shot the ball as well as he’s capable of quite yet. But just like Mart got going tonight, I think Will can do it next Thursday down in Orlando against Wake. It’s just a matter of time before he starts drilling shots. But he’s continued to improve in other areas of his game. He’s become more of a complete player. And the area that he’s really grown is when, even if he’s not shooting the ball great, he’s still defending well, he’s still rebounding well, he’s still moving the ball well. And he understands that the shot will fall for him. It’s just a matter of time. But to be more of a complete player has obviously made us a better team.”

On the 35-15 advantage in bench points:

TODD GOLDEN: “We really missed those guys on Tuesday night, San and Denzel. The way we’re playing and how fast we want to play. When you go from playing eight or nine to playing six or seven, you’re not able to sustain basically that push on the offensive end and you start wearing down a little bit. But our bench is an incredibly important part of our team, you know? And I think you look at a guy like Denzel or Sam, Tommy, those guys are starter level players. They can start in most programs in America. They just happen to be on a team with some other really good players. And, you know, the credit that they deserve for their performance is important, but also their mentality, their attitude, for their willingness to be great teammates and assume those roles, which make us better. But again, the thing that makes us who we are is when Tommy, Zell Sam, Urby go in the game, we don’t have much of a drop off, if any. And that’s being a super complete team. And I think that’s why we have a chance to be pretty good.”