Everything Todd Golden said after Florida’s blowout win over Tennessee

January 10, 2026

Everything Todd Golden said after Florida’s blowout win over Tennessee

Florida head basketball coach praised his team after a 91-67 win over the Tennessee Volunteers at dwelling on Saturday, specializing in Boogie Fland’s breakout performance, Rueben Chinyelu’s development right into a dominant frontcourt participant and driving a homecourt benefit to victory.

Golden said that the objective coming into the game was to show they may out-physical a team like Tennessee, and added that the early-season losses to non-conference applications helped put together the Gators for this second. All season, Golden has preached that the team will seem like an elite program as soon as it begins hitting pictures, and Florida’s performance backed that up in the win. Golden wasn’t shy about doubling down on that notion.

Strong protection was another scorching matter, be it Florida’s ability to cease the 3-pointer or the guards stepping up on that facet of the ball. Turning protection into offense was a big purpose why Florida received by so many factors. The plan is to continue that pattern transferring ahead in convention play.

Here’s the whole lot Golden said after the game.

Opening Statement

“Really, really happy and really proud of our group that we played our best game of the year. After beating Georgia on Tuesday, we talked a lot about this game being another step for this group, specifically in that we admire Tennessee for what they’ve done in the program since Coach Barnes has been there.

“I consider them as in all probability the hardest program in the league, and we’re continuously competing to have that title. We talked to our club quite a bit about it over the last couple of days, that this was a fantastic challenge to see who could possibly be the mentally and bodily harder team. Tennessee’s improbable, however we performed very well today, and I believed our guys, one via eight that received minutes, did a fantastic job of being mentally and bodily powerful.

“It started on the defensive end. I thought that we did a good job, limited them around the rim. We did a great job taking care of the ball. Only 10 turnovers, and we rebounded. We were plus-11 on the glass, and those are the things that we talk about all the time. As I’ve said to you guys, when we start making some shots, we’re going to be able to run away from some people, and we were able to do that today.”

On successful the turnover margin

“We just value the basketball. With the exception of a couple silly — we had one backcourt outlet turnover, maybe two of those — but other than that, I thought, especially in our half-court, we did a really good job of fighting for really good shots.

“We talked about Tennessee’s ability to defend, and that they’re not going to provide you a lot early in the half-court, and that you’re gonna should work just a little bit facet to facet to interrupt them down. We did a great job that manner. So that was a big purpose as why we took care of the ball.

“And then our group, our defense, has to lead to offense for us at times, and I thought we did a great job of that, especially our baseline out-of-bounds D, which was fantastic. It led to some run-out layups, and we just did a great job after the first four minutes of the game, where we were kind of trying to feel it out, of executing our game plan of keeping them out of the middle.”

On limiting 3-pointers by Tennessee

“Yeah. I mean, it’s a staple in the way we guard and what’s important to us. Especially once we got out to a little bit of a lead, we made sure our guys understood how important it was to make them operate inside the three. We didn’t want to give them opportunities to get back in the ball game.

“Ament hit a pair. I believed Gillespie had a few powerful ones off the bounce in the first half, however other than that, we did a extremely good job guarding the three-point line.”

On Boogie Fland’s haircut

“I feel he appears to be like nice. I feel he regarded nice before, however I feel he appears to be like clear. For him, sometimes these issues may be psychological, and it just gave him a possibility to sort of start recent. He performed improbable from start to complete. He defended very nicely. Kind of in the center 20 of the game, he took over offensively and scored a majority of his factors.

“That gave the rest of the guys a lot of confidence. Seeing him play freely, knock down two threes in the first half, start, and get downhill in transition — it just kind of took a lot of the pressure and a little bit of stress off everybody else. Once he started playing like that, we really took off.”

On Chinyelu’s ability to get to his spots, set the tone bodily

“Yeah, I mean, it’s incredibly critical. I think he’s growing into one of the best frontcourt players in the land. We talked a lot about, in this game specifically, winning the battle of the paint. They play two bigs. We play two bigs. Both teams like to screen assists in the lane. Both teams use their bigs as screeners a lot, and then both teams are relentlessly trying to create second-chance opportunities.

“So we challenged those guys to win that battle. Rueben had 16 rebounds. Okpara had one. He did it. He dominated. And that stretch in the second half the place we have been in a position to get him some deep submit catches over there on the proper block — just his endurance and his ability to get to his left shoulder and discover a solution to end — that was sort of the again breaker that allowed us to get an insurmountable lead.”

On early-season challenges impacting SEC play

“The worth of playing the non-conference schedule, for this week, is while you play a team like Georgia, who’s excellent and playing like a top-30 team, you’re not shocked. You’re like, all proper, nicely, we’ve performed Arizona, we’ve performed UConn, we’ve performed Duke. We’ve seen actually good groups. So this isn’t essentially something new.

“I think that’s where that experience comes in. And same for today, because you can talk about the physicality that Tennessee brings, and you can talk about their size, but you can’t really experience it until you get on the floor, unless you play other teams like that.

“I feel Arizona is a team that’s very bodily, very big in the entrance courtroom. Duke has some actually bodily frontcourt gamers. UConn as nicely. So taking our lumps early in the 12 months, falling quick against those groups, is hard mentally and allowed us to fight via just a little adversity and continue to stay together. It positively was a optimistic for us today.”

On ending the first half on a 10-0 run

“It was enormous. I feel we have been tied at 26 or one thing before that, and we received a 3. I feel we got here again, gave a bucket, and then we ran out on a ten–0 run. Going into halftime up 13 is quite a bit more comfy than entering into up three. It gave us just a little bit of fine juice and confidence and perception that if we might go out there and continue defending in the second half, that we’d be in fine condition.”

On Fland having four steals

“Yeah, I believed he was extremely disruptive. After the first media (timeout) of the game, you may inform, like, in real time, the weight of the world being lifted off his shoulders after that first shot went in. And then getting that steal on the baseline out of bounds that he became a tricky end. You might just see (it).

“All of us felt like, man, we were all just so happy for him that individually he could start having more success and be able to play with that freedom that allows him to do that. When he’s at his best, he’s disruptive defensively. He’s a pest on the ball. He’s creating transition opportunities through his defense, and I thought he played a great game today, start to finish.”

On Urban Klavzar’s progress as a defender

‘One factor I’ll let you know about Urb is he’s extremely powerful — mentally and bodily — and he needs the challenge. The good thing about him is he’ll get beat, however he’s never going to run away from it. He’s going to continue to step again up and take that challenge. I believed he did a beautiful job on Gillespie.

“Gillespie is a mental-toughness cover in the sense that you can’t relax. You can’t for a second be like, ‘Oh, I’m good,’ because when you do that, he’s going to rip off a screen or find a shot. Urby’s toughness defensively, being able to stay in his body, stay engaged, not get beat off the screen — it was huge for us. I thought this was his best defensive game of the year.

“It confirmed him being plus-23 in 28 minutes.”

On turning Florida into a tough homecourt team

“Yeah, it’s superior, man. It’s what you assume about with big-time faculty basketball and profitable applications. I feel we’ve received 37 of our last 39. Credit to the followers and our supporters. I imply, it’s an unbelievable home-court benefit. We received off to that little run. I feel we went up 36–28. They called a timeout, and it was deafening in right here.

“That makes the guys play better. It gives us more confidence, and we have a lot of respect and appreciation for the support we receive at home. It’s part of being a great program. You need your home court to be an advantage. You’ve got to be in here and expect to win games and play really well. Having 11,000 behind you is a big part of that.”

On having former gamers coming again and visiting

“I think it says a lot about the players in our program and the success we’ve been able to have, because the reality is those guys aren’t coming back unless they’re excited to watch the team play and excited to be a part of the venue. I mean, that’s just reality.

“They have lives and so they have issues that they’re able to doing, but it surely means quite a bit to us. To have Vernon (Maxwell) again was superior. He was in the locker room with us after the game. Just to see, for our gamers to see, how the level of respect he had on his face for his or her effort is the same as or larger than something we are able to say.

“This guy has done it. He’s played in NBA championships. He’s won championships. He’s been a part of great teams, and he’s in there talking to the guys about how much he admires how hard they play and how tough they fight.

“Mike Miller being right here — same concept. We need our greats to be again and to be again round, and we would like to have the ability to play and produce a product that they’re excited about. So, it was just a fantastic, nice day for our program today, for certain.”

How do you replicate this on the road?

“It’s the same formulation for us. It begins with defending and rebounding and taking good care of the ball. We didn’t defend and rebound nicely sufficient in Missouri. We scored nicely sufficient. We didn’t play nice offensively, however we have been 1.1 factors per possession. We just didn’t guard and didn’t end possessions nicely sufficient.

“So, we came back and really focused on that, and we’ll do that again for Oklahoma. They’re a very good offensive team. We’ve got to guard really well. We’ve got to rebound and allow our defense to help our offense. Hopefully, we’ll continue to get some makes from the perimeter like we did today. And if we do that, we’re going to be tough the rest of the way.”

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This article initially appeared on Gators Wire: Florida basketball HC Todd Golden post-game quotes vs. Tennessee Vols

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