WATCH: Florida players react to 73-43 win over No. 1 Tennessee

GAINESVLLE, Fla — The Florida Gators won their first SEC game of the season in historic fashion, with the 73-43 victory over Tennessee marking the program’s first win over the No. 1 team in the regular season.

Alijah Martin led UF with 18 points, while Denzel Aberdeen scored a season-high 16 off the bench. Alex Condon picked up his second double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 rebounds.

Here’s everything Martin, Aberdeen and Condon said after the Florida Gators victory over the Vols.

Alijah Martin

On Florida’s defensive effort after the Kentucky loss: 

Alijah Martin: “Yeah, we just wanted to protect home court. Big shout out to the fans, students. Place was rocking tonight. Definitely was something fun to play in and credit for everybody that prepared. Preparation for Tennessee, all of the team trusted it, and we all executed.”

On defending Chaz Lanier:

Alijah Martin: “We just kind of stayed in him, you know, we didn’t want to give him no breathing room. We know he’s an unbelievable talent, unbelievable shooter. Don’t need no space. And that was the gameplan, just don’t give him no space. Don’t give nothing easy.”

On where Martin’s turnaround 3 as the shot clock expired ranks for him: 

Alijah Martin: “It’s up there. I don’t really like pay attention or keep track of stuff like that. It’s up there, it felt good. The crowd was crazy. That’s what we do.”

On the confidence of the team: 

Alijah Martin: “Super confident, super confident. It’s going to be hard to beat us here. This is our house.”

On rebounding so well tonight: 

Alijah Martin: “We got hits. We got hits. Nobody ran, had a free lane to the rim. We hit everybody.”

On if the defensive performance against Kentucky was an outlier: 

 Alijah Martin: “Yeah. I mean, Kentucky had a great offense, you know, just like we do, we knew that was gonna be a high scoring game. But tonight, we just was more intentional, more locked in to scout. I just, I just seen something different. Everybody eyes on a scout. We were going through player tendencies and stuff like that. Everybody just seemed locked in. We do that all year, we’ll be great.”

RELATED: Everything Todd Golden said after the Florida Gators’ win vs. Tennessee

Denzel Aberdeen

On making up for the defensive performance against Kentucky:

Denzel Aberdeen: “Yeah, we knew coming from the Kentucky game, we had to pick our defense up, and especially they had another great shooter in Chaz. So, we knew coming into this game, we had to stop letting threes come up easily. And luckily, they missed a lot, a lot of the threes, but we still stuck together and talked through it, and we fought through screens because they were sending a lot of down screens and stuff And, coming out of halftime, we just talked about our defensive game plan and what we needed to do better.”

On Walter Clayton struggling but the rest of the team stepping up:

Denzel Aberdeen: “Yeah it shows what overall team we have like if Walt goes down, I know Condon will pick it up. If Condon goes down, I know Martin was going pick it up. We just got a great overall team from guards to bigs, and so I know each game we gonna pick each other up, and we just gonna back up each other. So, one goes down, one going to pick it up.”

On the importance of imposing their style against a physical Tennessee team: 

Denzel Aberdeen: “It was very important because Coach Golden was saying this team is very physical. We got to come in banging. We can’t let them get easy looks and stuff. And so credit to our bigs that are very physical, getting rebounds, like you said earlier. And guards, credit as well for coming in, helping the bigs out rebounding. We knew they were physical. We knew the refs were going to let things go sometimes. We just had to not look for foul calls and just go to the rim aggressively on offense and just trying to finish everything, match their physicality.”

On quick offensive opportunities:

Denzel Aberdeen: “Credit to the bigs, too, again because they got offensive rebounds. Just left us with close outs. And I just read what the defense was giving me. And like I said, Coach said, go attack the rim off two feet, play off two feet and be strong. So I mean, I guess that’s what I did today, and bigs had great duck in so it was easy layups for me, and my shots too, just guards, Alijah, Walt, Will finding me in the right spots, just me being ready to catch and shoot.”

RELATED: Live Blog: Florida Gators 73, Tennessee Volunteers 43

Alex Condon

On beating the No. 1 team:

Alex Condon: “I think we just brought the physicality tonight, like coach was saying. They’re a very physical team, and the refs let it go tonight. So, I think that’s the key part for us.”

On Walter Clayton’s early foul trouble, team stepping up in his place:

Alex Condon: “I think Denzel provides a great scoring presence coming off the bench when Walt checks out the game. Yeah, the guys are so good at like finding bigs and playing together. And, we basically said, coming out of half time, we let UNC come back into it a little bit, and we weren’t happy with our second-half defensive performance against Kentucky, too. So, yes, ensuring that we kept the foot in the gas in the second half was a big emphasis for us.”

On Rueben Chinyelu’s 15 rebounds:

Alex Condon: “Yeah, I think when we both crash it’s hard to stop both of us, Rue is a very physical dude. And I like passing him the ball because he usually finishes it for me.”

On winning by an average of 30 points per home game: 

Alex Condon: “We take the home court. I think we take pride together and not letting people come in and being out-physical on us and just taking it to them.”

On his “too small” celebration: 

Alex Condon: “Yeah, I tried keeping it lowkey. I didn’t want to be too disrespectful. I was feeling it. There was a lot of energy in the building, so it was good.”