Next Up: Saturday, Jan. 18, 4 p.m., Texas, ESPN2
Notable
* Walter Clayton’s 28 points were not enough as the Gators suffered their first home loss in more than a year, snapping a 16-game home winning streak.
* Missouri started 7-for-11 start from 3-point range, including a stretch of five straight makes, and built a 19-point first-half lead. The Gators rallied back within a possession on several occasions over the final eight minutes and got within two in the final minute, but were not able to tie the game.
* Rueben Chinyelu posted his second double-double of the season, first in SEC play, with 11 points and 10 rebounds.
* Alijah Martin (14) and Will Richard (12) also chipped in double figures for the Gators.
* Clayton extended his streak to 40 consecutive games with at least one 3-point field goal made, passing Lee Humphrey for the second-longest such streak in Florida history and just one game behind UF’s program record, held by Michael Frazier II (41).
* Clayton now has six games this season with 25+ points.
Head Coach Todd Golden
Opening statement…
“Obviously disappointed, got to give a lot of credit to Missouri. Obviously, they played harder than us. They were more ready to play than we were, obviously jumped on us in the first half and we were not ready for it. And obviously it starts with me. I need to do a better job making sure that we’re ready to go and making sure that we understand what’s in front of us. Obviously, this is a very good team that we played tonight, 3-1 in the league, 14-3 overall. Smacked [No. 1 at the time] Kansas at home. You know, obviously Coach [Dennis] Gates did a great job of putting this team together, bouncing back off the season last year and building a tournament team. Just really disappointed by our lack of enthusiasm, energy, whatever you want to call it in the first half. Obviously, I thought we were pretty resilient and tough in the second half. Building a 16-point hole at home, or anywhere for that matter, is a really bad strategy when winning is the goal. Got to use this as a learning experience, you know, first time this year where we feel kind of disappointed about just the way we executed, our effort, the way we attack the game and it doesn’t get easier in this league. We gotta get back and get ready for Saturday against Texas.”
On whether he might look back fondly in a few weeks if this game sparking a new fire in this team…
“I don’t think we’ll ever look at it fondly, but if we are able to get back to being the gritty, competitive team that plays with a chip on their shoulder and is the more physical team – which we’ve been pretty much every time we’ve played this year – then it won’t be the end of the world that we lose tonight. We have to. We just have no other choice. If we don’t bounce back and find that, we will struggle through the rest of this conference season. I don’t anticipate that being an issue. These guys are obviously…they’ve been great all year. It’s hard to be good; we talk about that a lot. The disappointing thing is this team has been pretty consistent with the effort and the physicality and, to Missouri’s credit, I thought they laid it on us in the first half, and we seemed like we were a little surprised, caught off guard. I don’t know if we felt like we could just kind of go play and that it would all work out, but to Missouri’s credit they set the terms of the game early on and it took us too long to battle back and find a way.”
Senior G Walter Clayton Jr.
On allowing 18 points off 13 turnovers…
“Yeah, it’s real tough. Our goal is to stay under 12 turnovers, under six a half and obviously we didn’t do that and they got some buckets off of it, so it’s kind of like giving the other team points. So we’ve got to be better in that, we’ve got to be better that way.”
On his performance…
“It wasn’t great. We lost, so obviously it wasn’t great.”
Senior G Will Richard
On the difficulty of losing a close game after trailing by as many as 19 points…
“Yeah, it’s definitely not a good feeling, but it’s definitely something you can learn from. You can’t take nights off in this league and having a first half like we had, it can’t happen again the rest of the season. So definitely something we can look at tomorrow, go over the film, break it down and make sure it doesn’t happen again.”
On the most frustrating thing about tonight…
“I would say the lack of urgency and effort in the first half. We can’t let that happen in this [league]. I feel like we should have been ready to go from the jump.”
On if they were surprised by Missouri’s physicality…
“I wouldn’t say surprised. We knew it was going to be a fight like every other game is in the SEC, but we’ve definitely got to respond to it better.”
On if this can fuel the team…
“For sure. Definitely want to make sure it doesn’t happen again, so definitely fuel to the fire.”
