Courtesy Florida Sports Information
Head Coach Todd Golden
Opening statement
“Just super proud of our guys and our staff. I thought they did a great job preparing for this game. This is a really good Georgia team that we played. They obviously should’ve beat Auburn at home last week, been a top 25 team. The thing that I’m most happy about is that we came out with a great mentality, similar to last Saturday against Texas. What we’re trying to impress upon our team is if we bring that elite mentality and effort level in every game, especially at home, we are going to be really tough to play with. Gotta do it on the road, obviously, as well, but in these opportunities where you get good teams on your home floor, you’ve got to take advantage of that and I thought we did that today.”
On Walter Clayton Jr.’s performance and looking like things come easy to him
“Yeah, I mean he’s a fantastic player. He does a good job playing with good pace and patience. The game, I don’t want to say it comes easy to him, but a little bit. He sees things other guys don’t, and he’s able to get to his spots. I thought he played with great poise. I thought his floor game was fantastic, five assists, one turnover. Passed up a couple shots that he turned into assists for other guys, some two-point field goals. He’s being discussed as an All-American for a reason. He deserves that conversation. One of the best guards in America and continues to deliver for us in big moments.”
On creating points off of turnovers
“I thought our defense got us going in the first half. I thought our activity on the defensive end, we got some good run-outs, which got us going. The building came alive. Before I continue, our crowd has been absolutely amazing, especially on these weekend games. They help create such a great home court advantage for us and just the way…The energy in the building just right before tip, you can feel it and they’ve carried us in a big way at home. So, I want to say thank you to the support our players and our program are getting from the fans, especially in our home arena. To the point we were discussing about defense, we had 20 deflections in the first half, and that’s a number that we have not gotten close to in a long time. I think they had 14 turnovers in the first half, and we were just really able to open up the game because of our defensive activity.”
Sophomore F/C Alex Condon
On defending Asa Newell
“Yeah, he was a big guy in our scout. He’d been playing pretty well, so we just tried to keep the ball out of his left hand when he was driving and make him finish with his right. I think we executed down the stretch, and Coach [Carlin] Hartman was happy with how we handled things for the rest of the game.”
Sophomore F Thomas Haugh
On creating turnovers
“I think the guards do a great job of pressuring, A-Mart’s [Alijah Martin] insane on the ball up there, and pressing. And then we got that 1-2-2 working a little bit against South Carolina, so taking that over to this game and kind of speeding up their guards a little bit helped us a lot, just to create some turnovers and stuff.”
Grad G Alijah Martin
On the mindset coming into this game
“The mindset was, just don’t come out slow. We’ve got a tendency of coming out slow, and tonight we weren’t going to do that. Once we got the ball rolling, we just kept it going.”
On a full week off before their next game against Tennessee
“It’s a good thing. We can take a day or two, rest our bodies and then use the rest to prep for Tennessee. Just having a week off is good right now because we have a big stretch coming up and we’ll be fresh for it.”
Head Coach Todd Golden
Opening statement
“Just super proud of our guys and our staff. I thought they did a great job preparing for this game. This is a really good Georgia team that we played. They obviously should’ve beat Auburn at home last week, been a top 25 team. The thing that I’m most happy about is that we came out with a great mentality, similar to last Saturday against Texas. What we’re trying to impress upon our team is if we bring that elite mentality and effort level in every game, especially at home, we are going to be really tough to play with. Gotta do it on the road, obviously, as well, but in these opportunities where you get good teams on your home floor, you’ve got to take advantage of that and I thought we did that today.”
On Walter Clayton Jr.’s performance and looking like things come easy to him
“Yeah, I mean he’s a fantastic player. He does a good job playing with good pace and patience. The game, I don’t want to say it comes easy to him, but a little bit. He sees things other guys don’t, and he’s able to get to his spots. I thought he played with great poise. I thought his floor game was fantastic, five assists, one turnover. Passed up a couple shots that he turned into assists for other guys, some two-point field goals. He’s being discussed as an All-American for a reason. He deserves that conversation. One of the best guards in America and continues to deliver for us in big moments.”
On creating points off of turnovers
“I thought our defense got us going in the first half. I thought our activity on the defensive end, we got some good run-outs, which got us going. The building came alive. Before I continue, our crowd has been absolutely amazing, especially on these weekend games. They help create such a great home court advantage for us and just the way…The energy in the building just right before tip, you can feel it and they’ve carried us in a big way at home. So, I want to say thank you to the support our players and our program are getting from the fans, especially in our home arena. To the point we were discussing about defense, we had 20 deflections in the first half, and that’s a number that we have not gotten close to in a long time. I think they had 14 turnovers in the first half, and we were just really able to open up the game because of our defensive activity.”
Sophomore F/C Alex Condon
On defending Asa Newell
“Yeah, he was a big guy in our scout. He’d been playing pretty well, so we just tried to keep the ball out of his left hand when he was driving and make him finish with his right. I think we executed down the stretch, and Coach [Carlin] Hartman was happy with how we handled things for the rest of the game.”
Sophomore F Thomas Haugh
On creating turnovers
“I think the guards do a great job of pressuring, A-Mart’s [Alijah Martin] insane on the ball up there, and pressing. And then we got that 1-2-2 working a little bit against South Carolina, so taking that over to this game and kind of speeding up their guards a little bit helped us a lot, just to create some turnovers and stuff.”
Grad G Alijah Martin
On the mindset coming into this game
“The mindset was, just don’t come out slow. We’ve got a tendency of coming out slow, and tonight we weren’t going to do that. Once we got the ball rolling, we just kept it going.”
On a full week off before their next game against Tennessee
“It’s a good thing. We can take a day or two, rest our bodies and then use the rest to prep for Tennessee. Just having a week off is good right now because we have a big stretch coming up and we’ll be fresh for it.”