Takeaways from Florida’s 90-84 win over North Carolina

The No. 7 Florida Gators faced adversity for the first time this season and passed the test Tuesday in their 90-84 win over North Carolina in the Jumpman Invitational.

With the game tied at 84, Florida made multiple winning plays in the game’s final minute. Will Richard made a putback layup with 56 seconds left, Thomas Haugh had back-to-back rebounds and made both free throws after his offensive board and Richard knocked down two more foul shots.

Richard finished with a team-high 22 points on 8-for-10 shooting (3-for-5 from 3) with six rebounds and two steals. The Gators (11-0) remained undefeated on the year and now own the second-best start in program history after tying the 10-0 mark by the 1951-52 team last Saturday.

“Just really proud of our group, man,” UF coach Todd Golden said in his postgame radio interview. “Our guys, they delivered. They got gritty, held them scoreless, had some great offensive rebounds that led to second chances that allowed us to get back the lead. We made some big-time winning plays down the stretch.”

Here are takeaways from Florida’s victory over the Tar Heels.

UF battles back after North Carolina rally

The Gators built a 17-point advantage in the first period and led by 12 at halftime, 46-34, but their double-digit lead was quickly erased after the break.

The Tar Heels opened the second half with an 11-0 run to cut the deficit to one and then pulled ahead 69-68 at the 7:51 mark, their first lead since it was 2-0.

“North Carolina came out much more aggressive in the second half. I didn’t think we handled it very well, clearly,” Golden said. “That’s been unlike us. We have not allowed teams to do that to us all year.”

The teams had multiple lead changes over the next few minutes, but after a fastbreak alley-oop dunk put UNC up 81-77, Golden called a timeout with 4:02 left.

“In that huddle with four to go … we just told our guys, listen, let’s get back to the basics. We gotta defend, we gotta rebound, we gotta take care of the ball,” Golden said.

“Our guys got gritty. We got tough, we got some stops, we made some big shots. Big 3 from A-Mart, big free throws from Tommy down the stretch and made just enough plays to get a win.”

Alijah Martin knocked down 3-pointer with 2:29 remaining to tie the game at 82 and then made two free throws to even the score again before Richard and Haugh took over in the last minute.

Florida closed out the game with a 13-3 run and scored eight unanswered points, holding the Tar Heels scoreless in the final 2:13 and outrebounding them 8-1 in the last four minutes.

Will Richard ignites Gators in first half

Florida got off to a fast start in the first half, going on a 10-0 run. That included the first 3-pointers of the night by Walter Clayton Jr. and Richard.

Richard kept it going, knocking down three consecutive treys to give the Gators their first double-digit lead five and a half minutes into the game.

UF led by as many as 17 points in the first half and held the Tar Heels to 29.7 percent from the floor (11-for-37).

“I thought we did a great job in the first half, played really well, got that 12-point lead,” Golden said. “We had it all clicking. We were getting clean stops. We’re getting out in transition. I thought Will did a great job getting us going, made some big 3s early that allowed us to kind of separate and we were just playing with a lot of freedom.”

Richard scored 13 of his 22 points before the break and Martin finished with 19 points. Point guards Clayton and Denzel Aberdeen added 12 points apiece, while Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh both scored nine with 10 rebounds from Condon and nine by Rueben Chinyelu.

Florida overcomes too many turnovers

Heading into the break, Golden made it clear what would be addressed with his players in the locker room.

“I’ll you one thing, we gotta take care better care of the ball,” Golden said in his halftime radio interview. “Nine turnovers, that’s the one area we gotta be better.”

It continued to be problematic in the second half as the Gators committed eight more. UNC scored 24 points off 17 turnovers, their second-most this season.

Clayton and Martin both had four turnovers apiece and Condon finished with three. It will be a point of emphasis from Golden this week before the next game.

“Obviously, we were really sloppy with the ball. Too many turnovers,” Golden said. “And the one area that we can look back on this game is at halftime, we just didn’t come out with enough energy. And that’s something that we can address and make sure it doesn’t happen again. But in a game like this with two really good clubs, the teams are gonna make some runs and we made just enough to keep them at bay.”

Up next

The Florida Gators are back in the O’Dome on Saturday against North Florida at 12 p.m. It will mark their first home game since Dec. 4 in the ACC/SEC Challenge.

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