Florida Gators

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. – Not quite four minutes into the game, his team was down nine points against a desperate opponent and playing in front of a hostile crowd. In other words, the scene was nothing like the lovefest that played out four nights earlier, back in the friendly confines of Gainesville, against the No. 1 team in the country. 
 
The Arkansas Razorbacks, winless through their first two Southeastern Conference games, came out swinging on their home floor Saturday and landed the first several blows.
 
"I thought we were a little caught off guard by the physicality and how hard they were coming at us," Florida coach Todd Golden said. "At the first media [timeout], we were like, 'Listen, we have to match their intensity, so just calm down and go play.' "
 
Guess what his guys did? The eighth-ranked Gators scored 11 consecutive points, coolly took their first lead about midway through the first half and never trailed the rest of the way en route to a 71-63 victory at Walton Arena on an afternoon they didn't have their best stuff.
 
Oh, the Gators (15-1, 2-1) were still nails on defense, holding the Razorbacks to just 30 percent for the game and 3-for-16 from the 3-point line (18.8 percent). The work on that end of the floor allowed their normally lethal offense to overcome a 39-percent shooting performance on the road and reduced minutes to top rotational players due to fouls. 
 
Sometimes the best, most rewarding road wins are the ones that have to be gutted out. This one was particularly satisfying due to the prosperity left over from the last game converging with the adversity that started this one.
 
"Our bodies were definitely a little tired, but I'm proud of how we responded to their start and turned it around," senior guard Will Richard said. "We got us a road 'dub."  Fifth-year guard Alijah Martin tallied a team-high 14 points behind four 3-pointers and grabbed four rebounds before fouling out with just under four minutes to go. Condon, the 6-foot-11 forward, posted his third double-double of the season with 12 points and 12 rebounds, with half his scoring coming after Martin fouled out, including a dagger, late-clock 3-pointer with two minutes left that turned a seven-point margin into 10. 
 
Richard scored all but one of his 12 points in the second half. Ditto Walter Clayton Jr. with his 12 to give UF four players in low double-figure scoring. Richard also had eight rebounds, Clayton five assists and a couple blocks. 
 
Backup forward Sam Alexis, forced into key minutes with his three front court mates in foul trouble (Rueben Chinyelu and Thomas Haugh eventually were DQed, along with Martin) was terrific off the bench. He finished with six points and seven rebounds in just 13 minutes. 
 
"I just tried to play like Rueben and Condo, try to play defense and rebound," said Alexis, part of a 49-39 advantage on the glass and 19-6 edge in second chance points. "Just try to help the team win."
 
Which he certainly did. All told, it was a solid counter to last weekend's defense-challenged road loss in the SEC opener at Kentucky – the team's lone blemish of the season – as well as an encouraging response from what looked like a dead-legged opening few minutes. 
 
Condon put it another way. 
 
"Coach talked to us about having a hangover from Tennessee," Condon said of UF's resounding 73-43 domination of the top-ranked Volunteers earlier in the week. "Once we got [their] little run to start out of the way and took their crowd out of it, we were OK." 
 
The Hogs (11-5, 0-3) jumped to an 11-2 lead barely three minutes in, with an early 3-pointer from Boogie Fland (15 points, 4 assists), transition slam from Jonas Aidoo (11 points, 9 rebounds) and pull-up jumper from scoring leader Adou Thiero (17 points) energizing the home crowd. 

"They were emotionally ready," Arkansas coach John Calipari, 0-3 for the first time in league play since his 1988-89 season at Massachusetts, said of his players. "Then they reverted back."
 
An offensive rebound and putback by Chinyelu (7 rebounds, 2 blocks), his only points of the game, made it 11-4. That's where things stood at the media timeout when Golden told his team to settle down.  Collectively, the Gators obliged. 
 
Martin started the run with a 3-pointer. Then came a slam by Haugh (8 points, 7 rebounds), followed by a layup in transition by backup guard Denzel Aberdeen. A Haugh stickback and Alexis slam off an alley-oop from Clayton pushed the Gators in front 17-13. 
 
From there, the game was tied once the rest of the way – at 18-all with just under seven minutes to go in the period – with the Gators holding a slim 31-28 lead at the break following their lowest point total in a half this season. UF shot just 31 percent and went 3-for-16 from the arc, compared to 29 percent and one of six for Arkansas. 
 
Like early in the game, though, there was no panic in the halftime locker room. 
 
"I thought we just needed to stay the course," Golden said. 
 
Which meant fighting through the frustration of a mucked-up second half that included 27 fouls called and 41 free throws shot, including a plus-14 advantage for the home team. 
 
"There were parts of the game they were calling stuff and parts of the game when they weren't," Richard said. "Just got to play smart."  And play on, which the Gators did, even when foul trouble made them undermanned.
 
UF scored 15 of the second half's first 22 points to take a 43-32 lead less than seven minutes in. The Razorbacks had a run in them, though. The margin was 10, at 53-43, when they reeled off seven straight, the last two coming on a nasty, driving slam-dunk in traffic by D.J. Wagner that called the Hogs at ear-piercing levels and forced Golden to take a with 6:10 to go in a 53-50 game. 
 
The next basket was a Clayton 3-pointer that threw water on the rally and was the start of seven straight UF points and a 10-point lead with just over four minutes remaining. 
 
In those closing minutes, Martin, Chinyelu and Haugh all fouled out, but Condon's 3-pointer from the top of the key – "That's my shot," he said. "I shoot it at a high clip." – and his post-up bucket with 1:24 left for a 12-point advantage put the game away. 
 
"We were a little fatigued both emotionally and physically, so I was a little worried about how we would be able to respond against a team that was awfully hungry and competitive," Golden said. "Early on, obviously, we struggled a little bit, but our guys were resilient and we fought. We weren't perfect, but we competed well enough to win."
 
On the road, especially in this league, that's good enough. 

Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu