- The Gators overcame an early injury to starting forward Alex Condon, relying on their depth to secure the win.
- Florida’s bench outscored Maryland’s 29-3, with sophomore Thomas Haugh and junior Denzel Aberdeen leading the charge.
- After a sloppy first half with 13 turnovers, Florida tightened up their play and shot 53.3% from the field in the second half.
SAN FRANCISCO ― When sophomore starting forward Alex Condon rolled his ankle in the first half, Florida basketball needed to rely on its bench even earlier than expected in its Sweet 16 matchup against Maryland.
Depth has been a strength all season for the Florida Gators, and it showed again in its eventual 87-71 win over the Terrapins on Thursday night at the Chase Center. Florida finished the game with a 29-3 edge in bench points. Sophomore forward Thomas Haugh stepped up in Condon’s absence and pulled off a near-double-double, finishing with 13 points, 9 rebounds and 4 assists.
Junior guard Denzel Aberdeen also delivered a big effort off the bench for UF, scoring 12 points on 5 of 7 shooting and 2 of 4 3-point shooting in 19 minutes of action. Even walk-on guard Bennett Andersen got into the scoring ledger at the end with a driving layup in the closing minutes.
“Me, Tommy (Haugh) and the rest of the guys on the bench, we come in with great energy,” Aberdeen said. “That’s what we try to do every game. We try to defend. Whether it’s on defense or offense, we just try to get a push on the edge because then they got a little tired in the second half. We kind of used our depth to our advantage.”
The drama in the game surrounded the 6-foot-11 Condon, who scored two early baskets before going down in the first half when he stepped on Aberdeen’s foot. Condon returned to the locker room in the second half, and after X-Rays were negative, rode the stationary bike before returning for halftime warmups. He came back to block a shot in the second half and wound up with six points in 13 minutes.
Need a break? Play the USA TODAY Daily Crossword Puzzle.
How Florida basketball regrouped in the second half
The 6-foot-9 Haugh played 16 minutes in the first half and Florida was somewhat out of sorts, turning the ball over 13 times. Still, the Gators led 40-38 at halftime.
“We feel like our depth is one of our biggest strengths regardless of who we’re competing against,” Florida basketball coach Todd Golden said. “Our first half, Condon goes down. It was a couple minutes into the game …
“We just got out of sorts a little bit. We had to play Tommy pretty much the whole first half. He did a great job, but he started getting fatigued. As we were talking about, we were just very careless with the basketball in the first half.”
In the second half, Florida turned on the afterburners. The Gators shot 53.3% from the floor, scoring 11 of their 16 second-half baskets off assists as they broke down Maryland’s defense. More importantly, UF turned the ball over just four times in the final 20 minutes.
“We were elite in the second half,” Golden said. “We did a great job staying aggressive, handling their pressure and their quickness and their length.”
Aberdeen delivered a pair of big 3-pointers in the second half. The first one put UF up 58-49 with 12:53 remaining. The second, with 4:57 to go, extended UF’s lead to 77-62, allowing the Gators (33-4) to pull away and move on to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2017 and sixth time since 2011.
“We kind of picked it up the second half,” Aberdeen said. “We were talking more on defense, coming more together offensively. And we got knock-down shooters, got great guards and great bigs just to clean up our misses. We picked it up in the second half, came together as a team.”
Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1
