Bungle in “The Jungle:” Gators Shock No. 1 Tigers

Auburn, ala. – With just inside eight minutes to do on the first semester on Saturday, the Florida Gators huddled on their touch line with an advance of a point after having a punch in the front row of Auburn and coldly , working calmly in the game.

UF coach Todd Golden watched through the fray and locked up on his leader, Walter Clayton Jr.Who four nights earlier led to the previous conference in the south-east of the team with a sprained ankle. Golden took a good, long look at its senior leader and the top scorer and was completely impressed by the air Clayton.

“He looked great, not tight,” said Golden. “I warned it at that time,” guy, there is a good chance that you play 40 (minutes). “He said to me:” I understood it “. The rest is in history.”

Yeah, like the meaning of the word “history” dictionary.

Clayton scored 19 points, with four 3s, and went to a career summit of nine assists while playing (indeed) the 40 whole minutes, leading five different UF players to a two -digit score And by sparkling the Florida in sixth row to a 90-81 upset from the n ° 1 Auburn in front of a closed and frantic couple in the hostile place known as “The Jungle”.

The victory, which came with a fifth year guard and a second top scorer Alijah Martin Striped 30 minutes before the match with a hip pointer, marked the first against an opponent n ° 1 on the road in the history of the team and came a month after the Gators (20-3, 7-3 ) beat the best classified team, Tennessee, at home for the first time in its history. Talk about checking the boxes, UF has just become the sixth team in the history of the Associated Press Poll to defeat two different teams classified n ° 1 during the same season.

“Just an incredible victory for our program,” said Golden. “I thought our guys were fantastic for 40 minutes.”

All his guys.

Clayton led an offense that fired on 48%, obtained 13 3 points (from six different players at 39.4%), made 15 of the 18 free throws, displayed a sec-high 22 assists and braved the One of the noisiest arenas in the country by building a 2-point lead in the second half.

Before the second year Alex Condon scored 17 points and caught 10 rebounds for its fifth double-double of the season, plus four assists. Backord treatment before Thomas HAUGH had 16 points, nine rebounds, three assists and three blocks. Main guard Will RichardAfter picking up two faults in the first three minutes of the match, collected 12 points and five rebounds in 31 minutes. Junior guard Denzel AberdeenEntering Martin’s starting program (as he did Tuesday for Clayton), scored 10 points and dropped a pair if Mega 3 balls in the second period. The second year goalkeeper Urban Klazvar went 3 for 3 from a distance, two of which are in the second half to build the big lead.

Auburn, who lost for the first time in 11 home games this season (and for the second of the last 26 in two seasons) was led by the 18 points of striker John Broome, 11 rebounds and six assists , but the favorite for 2025 NCAA Player of the year was limited to eight goals on the ground on 19 shots, while he exchanged bodies with Condon and the rest of the court before the UF. The Gators held the tigers, by far the best rated efficiency in the country, at 42.9% for the game and seven out of 22 of the arc (31.8%).

What a week for the Gators, which seven days earlier, were castigated 64-44 in Tennessee in the lowest match of the team in 35 years. They bounced from this debacle by beating Vanderbilt without Clayton then the high -end tigers less Martin.

“We all have a” next man-up “mentality,” said Clayton, whose first 3 of the match pushed him more than 1,000 career points as Gator, the 57th player to overshadow this milestone. “Alijah was not on the field, but Alijah is still there. He was talking about the whole match. He told us what he saw. Same thing when I was on the bench (Tuesday). I just said to the guys that I was seeing.

Hopefully these hundreds of Auburn students who have launched tents and camped in the past four days outside Neville had fun during the 90 hours of training to see coach Bruce Pearl and his team beloved try to win their 15^th In a row.

Because two -hour payment probably was not worth waiting.

“Give Florida all the credit,” said Pearl. “They came here as if they had to win it. This is how they played every possession. They played harder, they played better, they played more desperately. We were not like the team n ° 1 of the country, we did not act as team n ° 1 of the country, we did not prepare ourselves like that, and a result, we were beaten.

The Tigers (21-2, 9-1) took a quick start, creating an advance of 15-5 in the first six minutes, while the Gators lacked eight of their first 10 shots. The Auburn advance was new, 20-11, when a Slam Condon on an Aberdeen lob and a 3 klavzar points began a 12-2 race which was finished with a Richard 3 and gave the Gators Their first advance, 23-22, with 7:48 to do. Timeout Auburn.

It was then that Golden took the measure of Clayton and believed that his team was in a good place.

“Walt knew what he had to do to get this victory,” said Aberdeen. “He led us and everyone was ready to follow.”

Even after an execution of 9-2 by the Tigers brought them back to a six-point lead and to the crowd to feverish terrain. The Gators responded with a series of nine consecutive points, five by Clayton, who put his team in front of four minutes to play in the period. Surprisingly, the Gators no longer dragged.

Florida led 48-38 at halftime, thanks to a 57% shooting against the unit of defensive efficiency n ° 11 of the country. Barely four minutes after the start of the second half, UF lowering six of its first 11 shots, the advance had reached 17 and had blown up to 21 – 68-47 – with 14 minutes to do after Klavzar struck his 3S 3S 3S 3S, giving the submarine with only three goals on the field in the first 21 games of the team, five consecutive brands of the two previous games.

“You need guys to intensify and make swing games,” said Golden about Klavzar, who obtained a more-17 score on the field in 17 minutes. “You will not hold them at 50 and hope.”

Maybe the biggest “swing game” came seven minutes later, after the tigers hit the 21-point deficit only nine, at 76-67, with blood “The Jungle”. At the end of Florida, Aberdeen missed a short rider that Haugh recovered for a second possession. This possession ended with Clayton Misping on a 3, but Haugh, once again, crushed the glass, reaching an Auburn player and typing the ball beyond the 3-point line, where Aberdeen the Has recovered for a widely open shot.

Rustling. A three -stroke possession to resume the margin at 12.

“It’s just the kind of player I am,” said Haugh, who obtained a score of over 19 years. “It takes a grain. Sometimes you just have to go do these things.”

Winning player. Winning game.

Auburn has managed to return with nine times twice in the last 90 seconds, but the Gators have not sold.

“We arrived with the right mentality. We went down at the beginning, but we did not work too much on this subject. We just returned slowly, then we did not play with the advance. We were composed.”

And in doing so, “The Jungle” with one of the biggest victories in the regular season of Florida’s 109 years of basketball.

“The biggest key was the mental tenacity of our team,” said Golden about a fifth victory in eight quadrant 1 games, according to the NCAA assessment tool. “It is a needle engine in terms of NCAA sowing. It is a needle engine in terms of the end of the dry.”

A seismic victory, of course. One for history books.

Send an email to a main writer Chris Harry at Chrish@gators.ufl.edu