Courtesy Florida Sports Information
Head Coach Todd Golden
Opening Statement
“Obviously a great performance by our players tonight. I thought they did a wonderful job executing our game plan from start to finish. Talking to you guys earlier this week I thought we played with great toughness physically at Kentucky on Saturday, but our mental toughness wasn’t where is needed to be to win that game on the road. I thought tonight we played with great mental and physical toughness for 40 minutes top to bottom. I thought all eight guys that played answered the bell. We obviously guarded incredibly well tonight. I thought we were great on the glass and we took care of the ball well enough and this is a great result for us and hopefully this kind of continues to catapult us through the rest of the season.”
On the significance of beating the No. 1 team in the country
“We have an incredible respect for Tennessee and the program that Coach Barnes has built there, and we knew that this was going to be a really challenging game for us, but we also do believe we are getting to that point where we expect to win these types of games. It’s hard to say, when you host the No. 1 team in the country, that you expect to win, but I think our program did going into this game tonight and we had good prep. I thought we had a good mentality, had a good shootaround today and out guys they were just ready for it, you know. You can sense it if guys are nervous or if they’re not, you know, preparing the right way, and I thought we were really locked in and I thought our performance showed that.”
On capitalizing on this historic win
“This was a great game for us, obviously, and I am incredibly proud of our players and our staff because we prepared really well for this game, and I thought our guys did everything that we asked them to do and then some and they were the reason we got this result. To be honest, like I said, I’m incredibly proud, but now our biggest thing is like, this can’t be the highlight of our season, you know? It’s awesome in the moment and we are going to enjoy it tonight, our guys are off tomorrow, but it certainly won’t feel as good if we don’t go and find a way to win in Fayetteville on Saturday. So we will enjoy it tonight, we’ll start prepping for Arkansas tomorrow and we’ve got to find a way to get to 2-1 in this league because any road win in this league is going to feel like gold.”
Junior G Denzel Aberdeen
On how they bounced back on defense after the loss to Kentucky
“We knew coming from the Kentucky game, we had to pick our defense up and especially when they had another great shooter in Chaz [Lanier]. We knew coming into this game, we had to stop letting threes come up easily. Luckily they missed a lot of the threes, but we still sat together and talked about it. We fought through the screens because they were setting a lot of down screens and pin-downs. Coming out of halftime, we just talked about our defensive game plan and where we need to do better.”
Sophomore F/C Alex Condon
On the effectiveness of Aberdeen and others off the bench
“They provide a great scoring presence coming off the bench, it doesn't take a dip when [Walter Clayton Jr.] checks out the game. The guys are so good at like finding the bigs and playing together. We basically said coming out of half time, ‘We let UNC come back into it a little bit,’ and we weren't happy with our second-half defensive performance against Kentucky too, so just ensuring that we kept the foot on the gas and the second half was a big emphasis for us.”
On his effectiveness alongside Teammate Reuben Chinyelu
“I think when we both crash, it's hard to stop both of us. [Reuben] is a very physical dude, and I like passing him the ball because he usually finishes it for me.”
Grad G Alijah Martin
On the desperation that the team played with
“We just wanted to protect our home court. Big shout out to the fans, the students. The place was rocking tonight. [It was] definitely something fun to play in, and credit everybody for the preparation for Tennessee, followed it to a tee, we trusted it and we all executed it”
On how they kept Chaz Lanier contained
“We just kind of stayed on him. We didn't want to give him breathing room. We know he's an unbelievable talent, unbelievable shooter. He don't need space, and that was the whole game plan -- just don't give him space. Don't give him anything easy.”
Head Coach Todd Golden
Opening Statement
“Obviously a great performance by our players tonight. I thought they did a wonderful job executing our game plan from start to finish. Talking to you guys earlier this week I thought we played with great toughness physically at Kentucky on Saturday, but our mental toughness wasn’t where is needed to be to win that game on the road. I thought tonight we played with great mental and physical toughness for 40 minutes top to bottom. I thought all eight guys that played answered the bell. We obviously guarded incredibly well tonight. I thought we were great on the glass and we took care of the ball well enough and this is a great result for us and hopefully this kind of continues to catapult us through the rest of the season.”
On the significance of beating the No. 1 team in the country
“We have an incredible respect for Tennessee and the program that Coach Barnes has built there, and we knew that this was going to be a really challenging game for us, but we also do believe we are getting to that point where we expect to win these types of games. It’s hard to say, when you host the No. 1 team in the country, that you expect to win, but I think our program did going into this game tonight and we had good prep. I thought we had a good mentality, had a good shootaround today and out guys they were just ready for it, you know. You can sense it if guys are nervous or if they’re not, you know, preparing the right way, and I thought we were really locked in and I thought our performance showed that.”
On capitalizing on this historic win
“This was a great game for us, obviously, and I am incredibly proud of our players and our staff because we prepared really well for this game, and I thought our guys did everything that we asked them to do and then some and they were the reason we got this result. To be honest, like I said, I’m incredibly proud, but now our biggest thing is like, this can’t be the highlight of our season, you know? It’s awesome in the moment and we are going to enjoy it tonight, our guys are off tomorrow, but it certainly won’t feel as good if we don’t go and find a way to win in Fayetteville on Saturday. So we will enjoy it tonight, we’ll start prepping for Arkansas tomorrow and we’ve got to find a way to get to 2-1 in this league because any road win in this league is going to feel like gold.”
Junior G Denzel Aberdeen
On how they bounced back on defense after the loss to Kentucky
“We knew coming from the Kentucky game, we had to pick our defense up and especially when they had another great shooter in Chaz [Lanier]. We knew coming into this game, we had to stop letting threes come up easily. Luckily they missed a lot of the threes, but we still sat together and talked about it. We fought through the screens because they were setting a lot of down screens and pin-downs. Coming out of halftime, we just talked about our defensive game plan and where we need to do better.”
Sophomore F/C Alex Condon
On the effectiveness of Aberdeen and others off the bench
“They provide a great scoring presence coming off the bench, it doesn't take a dip when [Walter Clayton Jr.] checks out the game. The guys are so good at like finding the bigs and playing together. We basically said coming out of half time, ‘We let UNC come back into it a little bit,’ and we weren't happy with our second-half defensive performance against Kentucky too, so just ensuring that we kept the foot on the gas and the second half was a big emphasis for us.”
On his effectiveness alongside Teammate Reuben Chinyelu
“I think when we both crash, it's hard to stop both of us. [Reuben] is a very physical dude, and I like passing him the ball because he usually finishes it for me.”
Grad G Alijah Martin
On the desperation that the team played with
“We just wanted to protect our home court. Big shout out to the fans, the students. The place was rocking tonight. [It was] definitely something fun to play in, and credit everybody for the preparation for Tennessee, followed it to a tee, we trusted it and we all executed it”
On how they kept Chaz Lanier contained
“We just kind of stayed on him. We didn't want to give him breathing room. We know he's an unbelievable talent, unbelievable shooter. He don't need space, and that was the whole game plan -- just don't give him space. Don't give him anything easy.”