{"id":85580,"date":"2025-03-14T22:25:13","date_gmt":"2025-03-15T03:25:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/felt-like-a-sweet-16-game-todd-golden-reacts-to-ufs-win-over-missouri\/"},"modified":"2025-03-14T22:25:13","modified_gmt":"2025-03-15T03:25:13","slug":"felt-like-a-sweet-16-game-todd-golden-reacts-to-ufs-win-over-missouri","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/felt-like-a-sweet-16-game-todd-golden-reacts-to-ufs-win-over-missouri\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Felt like a Sweet 16 game\u2019: Todd Golden reacts to UF\u2019s win over Missouri"},"content":{"rendered":"

NASHVILLE \u2014 No. 4 Florida advanced to the SEC Tournament semifinal on Friday with their 95-81 win over No. 21 Missouri. Four UF players scored in double figures and the Gators improve to 4-1 vs. Missouri under Todd Golden<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s everything Golden said after the win over the Tigers.<\/p>\n

RELATED:<\/strong> Takeaways from Florida Gators\u2019 95-81 win over Missouri<\/a><\/p>\n

Opening statement<\/strong><\/p>\n

TODD GOLDEN: \u201cReally proud of our group. Great win. Obviously a couple areas. We weren\u2019t at our best on the glass today. We were not at our best taking care of the basketball. But we did a lot of great things as well. Really efficient. 61% from the field is incredible. Our guys did a great job of putting the ball in the basket. I thought we did a good job of executing the scout in terms of out of personnel. A big thing tonight was limiting (Caleb) Grill\u2019s ability to get threes off as well as 35, Crews. We limited them from the three-point line. We thought that would be a winning formula for us. At this time of year, playing a team like Missouri in the quarterfinals, they\u2019re a very good team. I think they have a chance to make a run. Dennis has done a good job this year. Proud of this win, playing in the quarters of the SEC Championship. Felt like a Sweet 16 game tonight. Two teams that could do a really good job in March Madness next week.\u201d<\/p>\n

On how gratifying was it to put it together down the stretch:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

TODD GOLDEN: \u201cIt was very gratifying to win the\u00a0basketball game.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Florida\u2019s improved three-point defense compared to its Jan. 14 contest with Missouri:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

TODD GOLDEN: \u201cAgain, in the first game, we did not play very well. I didn\u2019t think we came out with the\u00a0aggressiveness we needed to perform well.\u00a0Tonight we obviously made a clear emphasis to try to limit their three-point shooting, specifically 31, Grill, 35, Crews.\u00a0 We thought if we limited their attempts that we\u2019d be in really good shape or give ourselves the best chance to win.\u00a0\u00a0We did do that. We held them \u2014 I think they were 0-4 combined in the first half. Grill got going in the second half with a couple big shots. We fouled him on one three-point attempt. We wanted them to try to beat us inside the three-point line. A part that did not help us that way was our inability to get rebounds defensively tonight. They scored better than we would have hoped.\u00a0Limiting their three-point shots definitely gave us the best chance to win tonight, and our guys did a great job of taking that away from them.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the offensive rebounding discrepancy, how much of that factored into the amount of shots they missed:<\/strong><\/p>\n

TODD GOLDEN: \u201cStill they got 18 offensive rebounds. We had 23 defensive rebounds. That\u2019s not a very good percentage. For us, I guess it was kind of the same.\u00a0Neither team did a good enough job keeping the opponents off the offensive glass. We talked about it with our guys after the game, that\u2019s an area for us that has been good all year. For us to advance as far as we want, we have to get back to that being a big advantage.\u00a0Missouri, they\u2019re really tough to prepare for. I think Dennis does a great job of kind of making the game difficult to coach. They run a lot of different defenses. They put so much pressure on you offensively. They just kind of make the game chaotic at times, which obviously wasn\u2019t great for us in terms of our ability to take care of the ball or limit them on the offensive glass.\u00a0Big picture-wise, getting back on the glass, taking care of the ball is what we need to do if we want to make a deep run.\u201d<\/p>\n

On the balance\u00a0<\/strong>between playing fast and not getting hurried, what Missouri did to speed Florida up more than it wanted to:<\/strong><\/p>\n

TODD GOLDEN: \u201cWe were definitely, like, pretty jacked up\u00a0for this ballgame. Anytime we get a miss, we want to play\u00a0fast, get the ball up the floor, kind of play out of our early\u00a0game, transition offense.\u00a0\u00a0I think an area where we did a poor job was being\u00a0organized after made baskets. We had a couple different\u00a0guys taking outlets. We weren\u2019t getting our spacing right,\u00a0getting set. We had some careless and uncharacteristic\u00a0turnovers. We stepped out-of-bounds twice in the corner.\u00a0\u00a0Back foot, one-handed passes. Things we generally do a\u00a0really good job of we just didn\u2019t do a good enough job of\u00a0tonight.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Thomas Haugh\u2019s performance:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

TODD GOLDEN: \u201cYeah, he was fantastic. I thought he did\u00a0a great job. First of all, knocking his free throws down.\u00a0This game, they were downsizing for sure. Not having\u00a0Mitchell, they tried to spread us out and kind of put us in\u00a0precarious positions defensively.\u00a0Tommy is a front court player that can switch, that can\u00a0keep guards in front. For him, in these types of games, it\u2019s\u00a0more opportunistic to have him on the floor. He did a great\u00a0job defensively. I thought he did a great job cleaning the\u00a0glass in the second half.\u00a0Offensively for the most part he had a couple\u00a0uncharacteristic turnovers. The high-lows he usually\u00a0completes all the time. He was sped up. He\u2019s such a\u00a0winning player. You want to keep him out there, see\u00a0different ways for him to impact the game.\u00a0Again, the defensive versatility, his ability to rebound, his\u00a0ability to make free throws. I think he\u2019s shooting like 85%\u00a0from the foul line this year. It\u2019s really impacted his growth\u00a0as a player and obviously made us much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

The post \u2018Felt like a Sweet 16 game\u2019: Todd Golden reacts to UF\u2019s win over Missouri<\/a> appeared first on On3<\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

NASHVILLE \u2014 No. 4 Florida advanced to the SEC Tournament semifinal on Friday with their…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=85580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85580\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=85580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=85580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/demo.wztzfm.com\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=85580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}