GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Suffice to say a basketball program is headed in the right direction when the team wins by 24 points and mostly talks afterward about what went wrong.
"That wasn't our standard," Florida sophomore forward Thomas Haugh said Tuesday night.
He was referencing his team's 84-60 defeat of Florida A&M at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center, a game that kept UF unbeaten, but also appeared headed for a far wider margin after a whirlwind offensive flourish to end the first half and sent the home team to the locker room up by 24.
Instead, the second half was a 38-all stalemate that had the Gators (5-0) at just 34-percent shooting from the floor and defensively put the Rattlers (0-4) at the free-throw line 19 times, allowing the visitors to shrink what was a 30-point lead inside 14 minutes remaining to as few as 17.
No, the game was never in doubt, but like Haugh mentioned ... there's a standard here.
"Like I talked about with the guys in the locker room, our expectation is to be able to play two complete halves. A full 40 minutes," UF coach Todd Golden said. "I thought we played 20 really good minutes in the first half and we were just OK in the second. A lot to improve upon."
Once again, it was the Gators' three-headed monster of guards who did the bulk of the damage. Senior wing Will Richard, in his 100th career start (70 as a Gator, 30 at Belmont) led all scorers with 20 points, hitting eight of his 15 shots, to go with seven rebounds over nearly 30 minutes. Senior point guard Walter Clayton Jr. added 17 points and five assists in his team-high 35 minutes, while Alijah Martin, the fifth-year grad-transfer from Florida Atlantic, had 14 points, nine rebounds, four assists, a steal and no turnovers over 32 minutes.
Senior guard Will Richard hit a trio of 3s on his way to 20 points. (Photo: Maddie Washburn/UAA Communications)
UF was without a pair of key junior reserves in forward Sam Alexis and Denzel Aberdeen, who both sat out due to illness. Their absence meant the Gators needed to go deeper into their bench, but Haugh was his reliable self in reserve in tallying 12 points, seven rebounds, three steals and two assists in 29 minutes. Sophomore forward Alex Condon had a tough night shooting (3-for-14), but battled for eight points, nine boards, three blocks and two steals.
"I just don't think we played our best," Haugh said.
The game was decided late in the first half. The Rattlers were hanging around, trailing only 27-20 with just over five minutes to play, when the Gators went on a 19-2 blitz to end the period. It started it with an offensive rebound and putback by Richard, followed by two free throws and a layup from Haugh, then back-to-back buckets by Clayton that forced FAMU to take a timeout.
The stoppage didn't help.
Out of the timeout, Haugh rained in the first of three 3s to end the period for the Gators, with the last two by freshman Isaiah Brown, who was playing the first first-half minutes of his career due to UF's depth issues.
Lefty freshman guard Isaiah Brown (20) buries one of his two first-half 3-pointers. (Photo: Maddie Washburn/UAA Communications)
Only a low-post jumper by Jamine Charles with 20 seconds to go prevented the Rattlers from being skunked the final five minutes. UF hit seven of its last nine shots for the period, while FAMU went 1-for-6 with four turnovers.
Whatever carryover there was into the second half lasted about six minutes, as FAMU outscored UF 30-24 over the game's final 14 minutes, mostly by drawing fouls and getting to the line, where the Rattlers hit 16 of 19 for the period (84.2 percent).
"I thought we played pretty well, but we just did not shoot it well," Golden said after watching his team make just 34.3 percent in the second half and go 3-for-18 from the arc (16.7 percent). "I thought we allowed that to affect our defense in the second half."
But after building a 30-point lead, that is, which definitely counts for something. What happened after that will be addressed in the coming days, but the Gators will do so five wins in their first five games for only the second time in the last seven seasons.
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu
