The passion, energy, enthusiasm, and toughness of the Florida Gators was once again on full display on Thursday as they rallied in the second half and pulled away from the Maryland Terrapins coming away with a massive 87-71. It wasn’t always pretty, but in a way–that’s what made this win so impressive for the Gators. This was a Maryland team that has been playing excellent basketball as of late and has a number of talented players, and Florida didn’t exactly play their A-game–and they still won by 16. The 87 points Maryland allowed was their highest of the entire season, and the 16 point loss was by far and away their biggest margin of defeat; as shockingly, all eight of their previous losses came by 6 points or less.
Scary Scene, And A Hero Stepping Up
Back in February Alex Condon sprained his ankle and missed some time but appeared to be back at full strength. Unfortunately, there was a scary moment in the opening half where Condon turned back in transition and re-rolled the same ankle, immediately sending him to the locker room. Condon has been one of Florida’s strongest players this season so it was clearly something the Gators didn’t want, particularly against a Maryland front court that had two excellent players in Derik Queen and Julian Reese. Ultimately Condon did return but he missed a considerable chunk of the first and second half, leaving a hole in Florida’s frontcourt. Stepping up was Thomas Haugh who has had a number of outstanding games off the bench this season, and he showed his skills once again finishing with 13 points, 9 rebounds, 4 assists, 2 steals, and 1 block to stuff the stat sheet. On offense he was using his shooting touch and ability to drive to put the Maryland defense in shambles, and on the other end he used his length and quickness on defense to disrupt multiple Terrapin actions. This was an uncharacteristically quiet game for Walter Clayton (13 points) and Haugh was someone who was able to pick up a lot of the load.
Glass Domination
Florida winning the rebounding battle over their opponent is nothing new, but they saved arguably their best performance on the glass for Thursday against Maryland. Florida finished with 15 offensive rebounds, and while that number seems solid–Florida has hit that number a handful of times this season. What made it even more impressive was that Maryland had only 13 defensive rebounds. That’s right–when Florida missed a shot, it was more likely that they were going to grab the miss than Maryland. Ultimately this was one of the biggest reasons Florida was able to run away with this game as they weren’t executing anywhere near their best in the halfcourt and Maryland’s excellent transition defense kept the Gators from getting anything easy. In the NCAA Tournament you need to be able to exert your dominance over the opponent with your biggest strengths shining through, and that’s just what the Gators did.
Room For Improvement
Maryland is an excellent basketball team that the Gators just had a dominant win against, but that doesn’t mean that everything went perfectly for them. Most notably–the Gators turned the ball over a whopping 17 times. Turning the ball over isn’t anything new for the Gators, but this was one of, if not the worst game for ball security of their entire season. Maryland is a strong defensive team but they’re not one that has turned their opponent over very much this season, though you wouldn’t have guessed that based on how Florida was throwing the ball around the gym. Most of these turnovers came in the half court as they struggled to get through their offensive progressions, and this has been a struggle all season long. It hasn’t really hurt them to this point, as evidenced by a birth in the Elite Eight, but it’s something to watch out for.
Final Thoughts
Seeing how this game went, it’s simply impossible not to keep going back to the fact that it felt like the Gators only played their B or C-level game and still beat a quality opponent by 16. These are the types of games that make you think the Gators might truly be living a charmed existence on a path of destiny to the Final Four and beyond, as even when so much seemed to be going wrong for them with the turnovers and Condon injury–so much else was going right with offensive rebounds falling in their lap and tough threes falling. The ability to beat good teams even on an off night is a quality of a great basketball team, and this will be just another feather in Florida’s cap. The Gators will now wait to find out who their Elite Eight opponent is–either Texas Tech or Arkansas. They’ll also get Alex Condon immediately into a recovery program for that ankle, hoping he’ll be as close as possible to 100% for the Elite Eight.
