From left: Gators Walter Clayton Jr., Tommy Haugh and Will Richard wall up against Wake Forest guard Hunter Sallis in UF's 75-58 win Thursday at ESPN Wide World of Sports.
UF Chops Down Wake Forest to Stay Unbeaten
Thursday, November 28, 2024 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
KISSIMMEE, Fla. – The Florida Gators are going to play much better offensive teams down the line than what they got Thursday from Wake Forest. But even the coach walking the other bench recognized how much better this version of the Gators plays defense than the UF team he beat last season.
"We were playing pretty well and they weren't, but they hung in there and that's a credit to their team and their coaches," Wake coach Steve Forbes said after UF stifled his Demon Deacons with a 75-58 smothering in first-round play of the ESPN Events Invitational at State Farm Arena. "So many times, how well a team is playing on offense dictates how they play defense. I didn't think that happened and that's what kept them in the game."
And turned the game. The 18th-ranked Gators trailed by nine midway through the opening period, but closed the first half with a 14-6 run and opened the second with 10 straight points to seize control of the game.
Senior guard Walter Clayton Jr. led all scorers with 21 points, pacing four UF players into double-figure scoring. Fifth-year guard Alijah Martin, the transfer from Florida Atlantic, had 16 points, senior wing Will Richard had a complete floor game of 14 points, six rebounds, two steals and no turnovers, and sophomore forward Alex Condon had 12 points and eight rebounds.
In winning a seventh game to start a season for the first time in 12 years, the Gators managed to shoot only 39.7 percent overall and 29.6 from the 3-point line, but made up for it by limiting the Demon Deacons to just 37.5 percent – including 3-for-20 from deep (15 percent) – and won the rebounding battle 44-30, with a 15-8 margin on the offensive end.
Guard Will Richard drives for a second-half bucket in the Gators' win.
The performance earned the Gators (7-0) a spot in Friday afternoon's tournament title game, where they'll face also-unbeaten Wichita State (6-0) at 3:30 p.m. The Shockers defeated Minnesota 68-66 in the day's first game.
"Any time you can play for a championship, of any fashion, is great," said Clayton, who was just six of 18 overall and four of 13 from the arc, but posted a game-best plus-21 in the final box score. "Obviously, we came here to win, so it'll be a good Thanksgiving if we can do it."
When UF and Wake played almost a year ago to the day, the Deacons erased a nine-point second-half deficit by hitting 13 of their final 16 shots and outscoring the Gators 44-24 over the final 15 minutes for win 82-71. Guard Hunter Sallis finished with 24 points and backcourt mate Cameron Hildreth had 15 in that. The duo combined to make 13 of 25 shots.
The lack of defense was a theme that played out over the course of Florida's 2023-24 season, with overall improvement at that end of the floor a point of emphasis -- the single biggest point, actually -- since a 102-100 first-round loss to Colorado in the NCAA Tournament.
Florida coach Todd Golden was fired up about his defense Thursdaya.
"That was our Achilles heel last year," UF coach Todd Golden said of a defense that ranked 94th nationally. "We were a very good offensive team and too often we got into track meets and didn't value the defensive side of the ball. This year's group has done a better job, as well as our staff, committing to being better at it. We're coaching it harder and our guys have understood what we expect on that end."
Wake opened the game by making seven of its first 12 shots and led by nine, at 20-11, at the 10-minute mark. The Deacons, who began the day ranked No. 143 in offensive efficiency, made just 14 of 44 shots (31.8 percent) over the final 30 minutes and just one of 15 from 3. Sallis and Hildreth combined to 11 go of 27 and one of nine on 3-pointers for the game.
"It was a very physical game," Martin said. "Wake Forest tried to get us out of our rhythm and we tried to get them out of their rhythm. It's how things [need] to be played when you're trying to get a team out of rhythm … with physicality."
UF used a 12-2 run – with 10 points from Richard – in a span late in the first half to regain the lead. Wake momentarily went back up on a couple free throws from 7-foot center Efton Reid. The game was tied the game at 26 on a basket by Sallis (15 points, 6 rebounds, 4 turnovers), but a Clayton 3 started a 9-4 run for the Gators to end the period and send UF to the locker room up 32-28.
The second half started with a UF flurry, a rarity for the team in the early season. Clayton hit back-to-back 3s to quickly push the margin to 10. A Condon layup made it a 12-point lead. Then, on an inbound out-of-bounds play beneath its basket, Wake tried to throw the ball to midcourt to get it in play. That's where Martin flexed that "physicality" he spoke about. Martin had his man blanketed, tipped the ball ahead to himself, gathered it and outraced the Deacons for a wicked dunk that forced Forbes to call a timeout, with the Gators on a 10-point run and his team 0-for-4 to start the half, suddenly down by 14.
Senior guard Walter Clayton Jr. started the second half with back-to-back 3-pointers to help the Gators open a double-digit lead.
UF was up by 15 inside nine minutes to go, but Wake cut the lead to seven. Consecutive buckets by Clayton and Richard settled the Gators in and a double-technical on Forbes got him ejected and sent Clayton to the line for four free throws. He made all four for a 70-54 lead with 2:42 to go.
Forbes wasn't around to see the ugly ending.
When the Gators left the building, they were ranked 30th in defensive efficiency, a 64-spot improvement from last March.
"Our defense still needs to improve, but I thought we took a step forward," Golden said.
And in the last week of November, that's not a bad place to be.
Neither is a spot in a holiday tournament title game.
* Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu
