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BOX SCORE
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Notes & quotes courtesy Florida Sports Information
QUOTABLE
Head Coach Todd Golden
Opening statement…
“Obviously a disappointing result. I thought we gave our best effort of the year tonight – on the road, here at Duke, incredibly difficult environment to play in. I thought we played really well the first 10 minutes of the game. I thought we were not nearly good enough the last 10 minutes of the first half, and that ended up costing us. We played an elite second half. Came in here and outscored them by 11. We just dominated the second half. We beat them by 11 on the boards. Turned the ball over probably a few too many times, but I thought we played a good game. I told our guys, to win in a place like Cameron, you’ve got to outplay Duke by 10 points because you’re not going to get any 50-50 calls. Things aren’t going to go your way, and we certainly had a little bit of that tonight. Again, overall, I thought we played a good game. Credit to Cam [Boozer]. Obviously, a great player, did a lot of great things out there tonight. But also credit to Rueben Chinyelu. I thought he was absolutely remarkable in the second half defensively, made [Boozer’s] life really difficult for the most part and making him more inefficient in the second half was what gave us the opportunity to outscore them by 11.”
On the second half being the team’s best defense of the season…
“I would agree with that. I thought it was our best 20 minutes overall, period. As I said, we were disappointed. There were a couple things in the first half that happened that we have to live with. One of the things that we wanted to live with was their big guys taking some 3s. [Patrick] Ngongba hit two 2s in the first half, one bounced all the way up to the ceiling and dropped in on us. Boozer made a couple good 3s. They made four 3s in the first half out of their frontcourt. We can live with that. What we couldn’t live with was allowing Cam to get back to his right hand, left shoulder, sending him to the line, giving him those right lane line drives. In the second half, I thought Rueben shut his water off, didn’t allow that to happen, kept beating him to his spot, made him counter. He made a couple lefty tough hooks, which we’ll live with, but kept him off the foul line that way. I thought our zone bothered him a little bit. Mixing that in made them uncomfortable, and we held them to 31 points in the second half. It was an elite defensive effort.”
On Thomas Haugh’s performance…
“He was exceptional. Never taking it for granted, but he delivers every night for us. Whether it’s stuffing the stat sheet or just making winning plays across the floor, when we sit there getting ready for the jump ball we feel really good that we’re going to win that matchup, whoever he’s going up against and he delivered again. I want to give Alex [Condon] a lot of credit, too, coming back off an injury. I thought he played his most intentional game of the year. I thought he did a great job keeping us in our offense, making good decisions with the ball. He was just really tough, did a great job on the glass, got six offensive rebounds for us. Both those guys, they led tonight the way we need them to lead if we want to be the team we want to be.”
Junior F Thomas Haugh
On battling back from 15 points down…
“I’m proud of our fight. Boogie [Fland] stepped up there at the end and knocked down some really big shots that we know he’s able to hit. Rueben [Chinyelu] may have done the best job. All the credit goes to him being able to limit [Cameron] Boozer by being super aggressive. He was so effective for us in the second half.”
On whether the second-half performance being the best the team has played this season….
“Definitely. We need to keep building off of this.”
On what’s required to come back from 15 down and take the lead in a place like this…
“A good coach is required. That’s something we’ve got on our side. Coach Golden gave us the opportunity to go out there and have a chance to win. I had a stupid turnover. Boogie turned it over, too. That’s on us.”
NOTEABLE
- Thomas Haugh’s 24 points led the Gators as Florida rallied from 15 down late in the first half, eventually taking a lead on Boogie Fland’s 3-pointer with :34.6 left before Duke answered with the winning shot.
- Fland scored nine of his 16 points over the final 4:00 of the game, including the clutch 3-pointer in the final minute.
- Haugh’s 24 points included 13 in the first half, as he posted his fourth 20-point game of the season and sixth of his career.
- Alex Condon posted a double-double with 12 points and 10 rebounds, including 10 second-half points. It was Condon’s fourth double-double this season and 13th of his career.
- Florida posted a 44-33 rebounding edge as Rueben Chinyelu grabbed a game-high 14 boards. It marked Chinyelu’s fifth double-figure rebounding game this season and his 11th as a Gator.
- Florida shot .469 in the second half, outscoring the Blue Devils 42-31 after the break.
- The Gators fall to 6-4 vs. top-5 opponents under Todd Golden.
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