SUNRISE, Fla. – After messing around for more than a half in the Tuesday night home win against an over-matched Merrimack team, Todd Golden got his players' collective attention Thursday. And how.
"He ran us," Florida grad-transfer forward Tyrese Samuel said. "He ran us a lot."
How much? Think Kurt Russell in the film "Miracle." You know the scene.
Again. Again. Again.
The message was clear. Play the way you're coached, but more importantly play hard and compete. Every possession. Both ends.
UF wasn't perfect Saturday in defeating Richmond 87-76 in the Orange Bowl Classic at Amerant Arena, but the team checked a lot of the boxes Golden and his staff were looking for. The Gators (6-3) had energy from the opening tip, followed the scout in defending a disciplined and efficient Princeton offense and didn't pout when shots weren't falling. Instead, they played through a couple rough spots and emerged with a second straight victory.
Florida is a team with plenty of offensive firepower, with five or six guys capable of being The Guy on a given night. Against the Spiders (5-5), it was junior wing Will Richard, who scored 19 of his game-high 21 points in the second half, including a lightning strike of three straight 3-pointers over an 80-second stretch that allowed UF to take command. Samuel added 18 points and a game-best 14 rebounds for his third double-double of the season, while point guard Zyon Pullin came off the bench to score 14. Scoring leader Walter Clayton Jr. was held to eight points, but had six of his team's 14 assists.
Adding to the feel-good trip south was the full-go return of 7-foot-1 Micah Handlogten to the starting lineup. The sophomore center looked far better on the move – "I'm still a little out of shape after not playing the last couple weeks," he said – and finished with eight points and 10 rebounds in 19 minutes.
Forward Tyrese Samuel (4) had another active day in the post (and box score) with 18 points and a game-high 14 rebounds on the way to a third double-double on the season.
UF shot just 44 percent for the game, but smashed Richmond 49-30 on the glass and made 20 of 25 free throws, 15 of 19 after intermission. It was enough to allow the Gators to weather an 11-for-22 barrage (50 percent) by the Spiders from the 3-point line.
"Just a huge win for us, one that I'm really, really happy about and really proud of our group for the way we came out," Golden said. "I thought we did a great job of competing for 40 minutes."
Richmond came into the game shooting nearly 50 percent on the season and 37 from the 3, with its patient Princeton principles a challenge to any defense, but especially to a team like UF that wants to play fast. The Gators were able to dictate pace by tag-teaming and frustrating Atlantic 10 Conference scoring leader Jordan King, averaging 20.9 a game coming in, into a 6-for-15 night that included 0-for-4 from the 3-point line.
King, who scored 29 with five 3s last week against William & Mary, was the No. 1 focus of the scout and the Gators – specifically, Riley Kugel and Pullin – made him a marked (and frustrated) man.
Or, as Golden put it, "We turned his water off."
"Communication was the biggest thing," Pullin said. "They did a bunch of different actions to get him the ball, but we were talking and made it hard on him."
Making Kugel's magnificent defensive display all the more impressive, especially to Golden, was that he did so while dealing with a difficult offensive night (4-for-16 overall, 0-for-7 from deep). He played on, played for his team and impacted the game.
Like he was coached (and challenged) to do.
"There are going to be some games where he struggles shooting the ball, but the one thing we have to be consistent with every night is how we lock in defensively," Golden said. "Riley set the tone on Jordan King. I don't even know that he got up a 3 when Riley was guarding him. It wasn't a very efficient night for [Kugel] offensively, but we'll allow him to play with that level of freedom if he's guarding the way he is."
Sophomore guardRiley Kugel (2) struggled on offense, but his perimeter defense was positively elite over his 30 minutes.
The efficient offensive night belonged to Richard, the 6-5 wing who was named MVP of the game. The Gators played well enough in the first half to build a 10-point lead at the break, but the Spiders were hanging around, down 53-46, with just over 13 minutes to go when Richard splashed a 3.
Then another less than a minute later. Than another 24 seconds later.
Just like that, the margin was 16 inside 12 minutes to go.
"My man went nuclear, with four shots in a row," Golden said of Richard.
The fourth came just over two minutes later when Clayton tapped a loose ball near halfcourt ahead to Richard, who turned the transition opportunity into an acrobatic layup, spinning the ball off the glass in traffic, while getting fouled and falling to the floor. The subsequent free throw gave him a fourth 3-point play (the first three the conventional way, the last the old-fashion way) for a 14-point lead.
"I just stayed aggressive within the offense," Richard said. "I wasn't trying to force anything."
His reward was a 7-for-8 second half and an encouraging sign for the Gators, who have been waiting for Richard to break out of a semi-shooting funk after putting up some of the most efficient shooting numbers – top 5 percent – in the nation a season ago.
"Richard is a guy who's just always under control," Richmond coach Chris Mooney said. "You can't speed him up and he doesn't force shots. That control, combined with his shooting ability, makes him really, really difficult to defend."
Will Richard (5) poses with Coach Todd Golden and the rest of the Orange Bowl Classic crew in accepting his Most Valuable Player honors after making going 8-for-9 in the second half with three 3-pointers.
UF got a little careless with the ball inside 10 minutes remaining and allowed Richmond to close within seven, with guard Dji Bailey at the line for a one-and-one and chance to make it a two-possession game at the 6:57 mark. Bailey, though, bounced the front end.
Three minutes later, with the help of Pullin's 3-pointer and driving jumper in the paint, the Gators were back up by a dozen and ready to close out the win.
It was exactly the response Golden was looking for.
Exactly the response the Gators ran for. Again and again.
