Senior guard Will Richard (center), flanked by junior center Micah Handlogten (left) and sophomore forward Thomas Haugh (right), get hyped during UF's one-sided win Tuesday over OU.
UF Boomers Sooners
Tuesday, February 18, 2025 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Oklahoma coach Porter Moser took Loyola-Chicago on a Cinderella run to the Final Four seven years ago. When he took the job with the Sooners, Moser saw three seasons of excellent Big 12 Conference teams up close, including 2023 national-champion Kansas, before OU migrated last summer to the expanded Southeastern Conference, which is being billed in 2025 as the best college basketball league in two decades.
This season, the struggling Sooners have been beaten – in some cases pummeled – by league foes Alabama (currently ranked No. 4), twice by Texas A&M (No. 7), Auburn (No. 1), Tennessee (No. 6) and Missouri (No. 15). Tuesday night, it was No. 2 Florida's turn to take Oklahoma to the woodshed, as the Gators made fairly routine work of the Sooners on the way to an 85-63 victory at sold-out Exactech Arena, where most of the UF starters took a seat with lots of time remaining.
Moser's post-beatdown postmortem was as much about the Gators (23-3, 10-3), winners of five straight, as it was his team. The OU coach was that impressed. Oklahoma coach Porter Moser
"They have the pieces to win it all. … [They] defend very hard, protect the rim, shoot; they got good positional size, five guys who have great range. I think they're one of about five or six teams that can be playing that last weekend [in the Final Four], no doubt," Moser said. "Your head just explodes with the level of these handful of teams and Florida is absolutely right there with the best in the league."
The Sooners (16-10, 3-10), losers of five straight, became the latest victim of UF's run of frighteningly efficient play on both ends of the floor, even with rebound leader and third-leading scorer Alex Condon sidelined for a third straight game with a low-ankle sprain. On offense, the Gators put five players in double-figure scoring, led by Walter Clayton Jr.'s 18 points, shot 45.2 percent overall, bombed in 12 3-pointers and turned the ball over just six times. On defense, UF limited OU to just 38.8 percent, including a sticky 26.9 in the first half when the home team built a 22-point lead and never looked back.
Florida, in fact, had more 3s in the first half (9) than Oklahoma had field goals (7).
"I thought we did a really good job of being pretty systematic with our effort tonight. After the first four minutes I thought we played really well, sharing the ball, shot the ball really well in the first half, defended at a very good level, which we needed to do," UF coach Todd Golden said. "Oklahoma is a very good offensive team. They're very hard to guard. They run good stuff. They play together. They go undersized a little bit, which makes them a little harder to guard, especially for us, a team that likes to stay big. So, holding them to 26, 27 percent in the first half, I thought set the tone."
So did Florida's shooting, as Moser pointed out.
"The depth of their 3s, they kept pulling out farher and farther," Moser said, ball-parking that three or four UF players have 27-foot range. "They put you in a trick bag."
Clayton, specifically, hit two with his heels on the Gator head logo in the first half, but it was a 17-2 run that spanned just over four minutes, with 3s from Urban Klavzar, Denzel Aberdeen, Alijah Martin and two straight from Will Richard, that broke the game open and turned a six-point lead into a 20-point cushion with five minutes to go in the half.
"We got multiple guys shooting it well from all over the court," Clayton said.
Clayton went six of nine from the floor, banged four of his seven 3-balls and over his 27 minutes went without a turnover for the first time in SEC play this season. His night ended with more than 10 minutes left and UF up by 23. Richard had 14 points with a trio of 3s. Martin, in his second game back after missing two last week with a hip pointer, had 14 points, with two 3s and five rebounds over 27-plus minutes on the way to a team-best plus-31 on-court score.
"I felt almost 100 (percent)," Martin said. "I don't think I have any limitations right now."
Alijah Martin (15) attacks in the second half for two of his 14 points.
Center Rueben Chinyelu had 11 points and Klavzar threw in a career-best 10 with a couple 3s, making him nine for 14 in conference play from the arc.
Florida, which got its nine first-half 3s from five different players on the way to a 46-24 lead, has now made at least 10 from distance in all five of its games during the win streak; a total of 63 at 42.0 percent.
The barrage of 3s?
"It's deflating," Moser said.
As for the UF defense during the five-game run? The Gators have guarded at 44.1 percent and allowed just 31.0 percent from the arc in the five victories. They did it Tuesday against one of the more creative offenses in the league and a likely first-round NBA draft pick this summer in freshman guard Jeremiah Fears, who had a game-high 22 on seven of 15 from the floor and four 3s. The rest of his team was 12-for-34 overall and 3-for-12 from 3.
"We knew we wanted to come in and have effort and intensity from the jump," Richard said. "So, it's definitely big for us to come in and guard them like that, starting the game off, instead of trying to feel our way into the game."
And they did it minus Condon, one of the SEC's best big men, who cheered his team on from the bench in a walking boot, as Porter took note.
"That's like taking another punch at my gut; throwing some salt on the wound," the OU coach said. "Yeah. It's scary how good they could be."
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu
