‘Tough one for us’: Todd Golden reacts to Auburn loss, Micah Handlogten

NASHVILLE — The Gators‘ SEC Tournament run ended Sunday with an 86-67 loss to Auburn in the championship game. UF rallied from a double-digit deficit to get within one in the second half before the Tigers pulled away.

Florida could not overcome a tough shooting day, going .364 from the field and 1-for-13 from 3-point range. The Gators had shot .478 from the field and .429 from 3-point range through their three SEC Tournament wins.

Here’s everything UF coach Todd Golden said after his team’s loss to Auburn.

Todd Golden Q&A

Opening comments:

Golden: “Obviously a disappointing outcome for us today. First and foremost, I’m incredibly proud of my team. I feel like they’ve done a great job just fighting and staying the course. We didn’t play our best today, but our effort was there, our intent was there, our heart was in the right place, head in the right place. Just ran into a team that was playing really, really well. They just beat us today. That’s okay. It happens. We’ll kind of dust ourselves off and get back up and get ready for the NCAA tournament.

“Obviously disappointing. I feel for Micah. Obviously, he fractured his leg. Our program is really appreciative of our medical staff, the SEC medical staff, and even Auburn’s group for how quickly they responded, comforted him, were able to kind of get him under control, take care of him. We’re thankful for that. I think he’ll probably have surgery later today, tonight. Hopefully he will have a quick and speedy recovery.

“Tough one for us today. Again, for us to get to this championship game this year, to knock off the teams we did, still incredibly proud of our team. I’m excited to get back on track for the tournament next week.”

On having to play on after losing Micah Handlogten:

Golden: “Yeah, I mean, it’s not something you can necessarily prepare for. It kind of took the wind out of our sails a little bit. The biggest part is that Micah has good relationships with his teammates. Those guys love him. He’s an incredible teammate. Even when he’s not playing his best, he has great energy on the bench, is always supporting all the guys on the floor.

“Losing him so early to such a serious injury, just human nature took over a little bit. Guys were emotional. We had guys, whether it was players or staff members, in tears on the sideline, just trying to kind of compose ourselves. Having that variable in the equation against one of the best teams in America is tough to deal with.

“We fought. I thought we did a good job of trying to compete. Got it down to one in the second half early on. We didn’t play our best. We didn’t shoot the ball very well. Fatigued or not, Auburn just played very well. I thought they were just simply the better team today.”

On trying to move on mentally from Micah’s injury:

Golden: “Yeah, it’s tough, man, ’cause he’s a great kid (tearing up). You just hate to see it for him because he does everything the right way. He works hard. That’s a super fluky injury that you don’t see very often in this game.

“Especially when a young guy like him that’s worked so hard to get to this point, playing in a big-time game like this, to go out that way, I just feel for him.”

On UF’s 14-4 run to cut the deficit to one point:

Golden: “We had an opportunity to compose ourselves at halftime a little bit. We kept it within eight. We got in there, I think we were able to take a breath and realize that we can still get back in this game, we’re all right. We came out playing that way. We were super aggressive, getting downhill in transition, putting pressure on the rim. Cut it to one. I can’t remember exactly what happened in those possessions, but we missed some free throws, a couple turnovers that led to transition run-outs for them.

“Once they kind of got that thing back up to eight or ten, felt like it was going to be hard to cut that lead back again. It’s one of those things, we’ve been fortunate enough to be able to come back from those deficits the past couple days. But this is a different team, different level team than we played the last couple days. Even though we were able to get it to one, we just didn’t play quite well enough, and we didn’t have the ability to keep at it that way.

“Again, they took advantage of our mistakes, like good teams do. Combination of us maybe not having everything we need to get it all the way back, and them just not allowing us to do that was the difference.”