Florida basketball bounced back in a big way on Wednesday night, recovering from its brutal home loss on Saturday to the Auburn Tigers with a record-setting performance against the South Carolina Gamecocks. The Gators matched their largest SEC win in program history and set a new record for a road victory in conference play with a 95-48 victory in Columbia.
Thomas Haugh had a game-high 18 points, Rueben Chinyelu added 14 points and 11 rebounds over 22 minutes for his 12th double-double of the season and Alex Condon flirted with a triple-double, finishing with 10 points, nine rebounds and eight assists. As a team, the Orange and Blue dished out 28 assists in the win.
Following that complete team effort, Todd Golden, along with Haugh and Condon, spoke with the media about their performance. Here is what they had to offer.
Todd Golden’s opening statement
“Yeah, I’m really proud of our team. We had a tough loss on Saturday. Just kind of got our butts kicked at home, and this was an opportunity for our guys to prove that we can respond the right way. I thought our mentality was good in practice yesterday and walkthrough today. Good job early staying the course.
“We weren’t scoring it well, but we kind of broke through around the 10-minute mark in the first half and never looked back. One of our best defensive and rebounding efforts combined all year. We just did a really good job valuing the basketball and finding our teammates – 28 assists, 11 turnovers is obviously really good, but really, really proud of our performance.
“This is a really tough place to play. They played Georgia great in here, played some other really good teams tough in here, and so for us to get this type of victory, it says a lot.”
Golden on size advantage being a difference-maker
“This is my fourth year here at Florida, and from year two on, we’ve been able to play big and play physically. South Carolina is really hard to guard. They play five guys that can shoot and pass, but obviously, in the interior, they’re not as tall or as physical as we are, and we were able to take advantage of that. I thought it showed up a lot in the rebounding.
“Rueben (Chinyelu) obviously going 7-for-7, Micah (Handlogten) got some good looks. Condo (Alex Condon) did a good job operating down there. Tommy (Haugh) was efficient. I think to play the best ball in the league, I think you need competent, capable big guys, for sure.”
Golden on response to Saturday’s loss
“I didn’t think we played very well on Saturday, but I thought our guys did a really good job of responding to the challenge. Auburn’s very talented. It can happen. They did a great job against us, and we had some guys not play their best, but I thought the way they responded… we practiced really hard on Monday, which we usually don’t do. That’s usually a really light day for us.
“But none of us were satisfied with how we played, and we wanted to get back out there and compete and practiced hard again yesterday. We spent a lot of time talking about making sure we were mentally and physically ready to compete tonight and understand that it’s going to be a really tough challenge. Our guys were clearly ready to play.”
Alex Condon on responding to last game
“It definitely was a priority for me to come out and have a good game today and come out with a different level of energy and lead the boys a little bit. That was a big thing for me.”
Condon on flirting with a triple-double
“Rueben let me know — about 10 times. He was looking at the scoreboard. It’s cool. I’m just glad the team won. To perform as well as we did on the road was special.”
Thomas Haugh on the team’s complete performance
“Twenty-eight assists is crazy. That just shows how unselfish this team is.”
Haugh on this performance showing Auburn was a speed bump
“It was a speed bump, but every speed bump in the SEC is about learning. We lost to Georgia last year and learned from that one and won a national championship. We’re going to keep learning from that Auburn game and keep pushing forward.”
Follow us @GatorsWire on X, formerly known as Twitter, as well as Bluesky, and like our page on Facebook to follow ongoing coverage of Florida Gators news, notes and opinions.
This article originally appeared on Gators Wire: Florida basketball’s Golden, Condon, Haugh talk South Carolina win