Everything Todd Golden said after Florida's win over Loyola Maryland

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The Florida Gators men’s basketball team cruised to a 93-73 season-opening win over Loyola Maryland on Monday night in the Exactech Arena at the O’Connell Center.

The Gators opened the game on a 16-0 run over the first six minutes and 10 players scored in the game. Florida coach Todd Golden improved to 2-0 in season openers at UF and 17-17 overall.

Here’s everything Golden said after his team’s victory over the Greyhounds.

Todd Golden Q&A

On setting the tone with a fast start:

Golden: “Yeah, it was great. What we were hoping for, and we were able to accomplish it, and I thought we did a good job in the beginning of the second half as well. Wasn’t as pleased with the rest of the game, but in terms of kind of setting the tone early, and then we stretched that thing out to 26 with 12-and-a-half to go. I would have liked us to kind of keep our foot on the gas a little bit better that way, but 20 point win, we’ll take it.”

On his general thoughts about the game:

Golden: “I don’t think we played as well as we had in the first couple of scrimmages, to be honest. I think a little jittery, a little bit of nerves that way, defensively we weren’t as physical as I thought we needed to be, and then obviously we didn’t shoot the ball well from the line at all. And, you know, that can be an issue moving forward. It wasn’t tonight, but, you know, as we play the tougher teams on our schedule, we just have to take advantage of the line better than we did tonight, yeah.”

On the free throw shooting woes:

Golden: “You know, we struggled a little bit that way in the scrimmages. Walt I think is more of an aberration, I think he shot 97 percent from the foul line last year, something like that, so I don’t anticipate him having issues moving forward, but our frontcourt has struggled a little bit that way, we will continue to address it. But this team will get to the line more, you know, we’re a little more athletic, I think we have more opportunities to finish at the rim and we got to take advantage of those moments better than we did tonight.”

On Loyola Maryland hitting drive-and-kick 3s:

Golden: “You’ve got to give them credit for the way they played, they’re disciplined, and they can become challenging to guard because they really wear you down, and you have to have really good mental discipline to stay on their kind of screening actions. Obviously they play a Princeton style, run some of the same stuff we ran last year, and you know again I thought the first 8 minutes of each half we did a really good job that way, but we kind of relaxed and we just fatigued a little bit, and I thought that was an issue in terms of kind of staying up in their space, so, you know, I wasn’t really happy with giving up nine made threes, even though their percentages from three, it was just, it was 35, pretty good, but we have to do a better job that way moving forward.”

On Riley Kugel’s performance:

Golden: “Yeah, I’m glad he played really well. To your point, he did a great job at attacking downhill and he did a really good job putting the ball in the basket. He could have drawn, I thought there were a couple more drives that maybe could have ended up at the foul line, but overall 10-of-15, and just a fantastic – does a great job reading an opportunity to go make a play on the ball. You know, to get six steals is really impressive, and that team is generally a really good ball-handling team. You know, they’re pretty savvy, their frontcourt handles it really well, and it wasn’t like he was taking advantage or picking on anybody. He was just being in the right place at the right time. But that’s an area that he excels in.” 

On his assessment of the bigs:

Golden: “Tyrese 15 and 8. Pretty dang good. Would have liked him to make a few more free throws. Three assists, one turnover, plus-23. Thought he did really well. Micah had a funny game – 16 points, 2 for 2 from 3. I can’t say I was really expecting that tonight. But we’ll take it. I thought Condon did a great job early, came out really aggressive, knocking down a couple of shots. Cramped up a little bit in the second half, but 13, had a good night. And I thought Tommy was pretty good defensively. So overall I’d say pretty good.”

On whether Micah doesn’t typically hit 3s:

Golden: “Correct. Well he usually doesn’t shoot them. Listen, he’s a skilled player for his size. And they weren’t guarding him out there. Walt pitched it to him. One thing I love about Walt is he does a really good job of infusing confidence in his teammates. He pitches it to him and says, ‘Knock that down.’ It’s like, ‘OK. Bang.’ It all really goes together that way. Do we want to live and die on Micah Handlogten shooting 3s? No. But at the same time, I’m not going to get upset if he takes a wide–open naked one from the top key in the middle of the game.”

On Alex Condon showing his versatility:

Golden: “Inside-out? Yeah, for sure. He’s really skilled that way. He can really dribble, pass and shoot for his size and has good moves inside. Again, similar to the shots that Micah got, if he gets those 3s from the middle of the floor those are great shots. They’re going to go down. I thought he played well.”

On Denzel Aberdeen gaining some confidence:

“Yeah, the first real game for him where they’re people in the stands. He played pretty well in the scrimmages. I thought he had moments tonight. But he’ll play better and better as the year goes on. I think for everybody this was a unique and new experience. We had two scrimmages together. But when you get into the arena and there’s people in there. The prep’s different. This was a funky prep. Playing Monday is tricky. You’re practicing on Sunday. We had a football game Saturday we’re trying to organize around that. I thought we were a little fatigued tonight, especially at the end of each half, which has been a strength of ours in terms of being in really good shape for those scrimmages.”

On any particular reason for scheduling Loyola Maryland:

Golden: “Not really specifically. It’s a program that we respect. They are hard to guard with the actions they run. To their credit they have high-major size on the front line. Their frontcourt players are all really big and physical. I didn’t think we did a great job of guarding down low tonight. But it was a good, different challenge that we had than our first two scrimmages for sure.”

On the sense of urgency with Virginia coming up and FSU next week:

Golden: “Yeah, for sure. The thing about college basketball, we only get 32 games promised, right? So, it’s not like the NBA where you can take a night off with load management. It can cost you a tournament bid if you have an off night that way. And one of things that we talk to our team about a lot is approaching every game like it’s the national championship. You gotta put your best foot forward. The way that teams are evaluated now with KenPom and the NET Rankings, margin of victory matters a lot. So, I’m coaching these guys in the last four minutes like it’s the first four minutes of the game. So, all of those things matter. And yes, obviously we have a really tough opponent on Friday. I think they won by 30 tonight against Tarleton State. It’s going to be a really big challenge for us.”

On the defensive concerns: 

Golden: “Defensively, I thought we were just OK. Again, early though, the first 10 minutes of the game I thought we were really good defensively. We were flying around getting a lot of steals. I thought we were more physical, and I just thought we relaxed a bit when we got up, to be honest. The game after the first two minutes never really got into a moment of where we were super stressed about the outcome, but that can’t be a reason why we relax and don’t play the way we need to the rest of the way. So, I think it’s an opportunity to learn. We did a good job that way in our second scrimmage, but it’s hard to do that every night. These guys compete, they have pride, they have some shotmakers and they’re going to just let us go out there and do what we want to do for 40 minutes. So, a good learning experience to make sure we can continue to keep our foot on the pedal for 40 the next time we get the opportunity to do so.”

On how Zyon Pullin will work into the rotation:

Golden: “Really well. He’s a very good player. He’s going to be a huge part of our team when he gets back and eligible. We definitely not having him out there, but with that being said, I think the guys we have right now can do the job in the meantime.”

On the importance of UF’s big men stretching the floor: 

Golden: “It’s important. I think the biggest key for our frontcourt and it’s a little more prevalent than we realize is just their ability to pass and share the ball. They do a really good job of finding each other. Our guys are really talented at finding shooters. And more so than being able to shoot and stretch the floor, if you have bigs who can pass it and spray it, it makes your team really, really hard to guard. In our two scrimmages, we had over 20 assists. Tonight we had 17. That’s not great, still good. But it’s an area that I think should be a strength for this team.”