SOUTHEASTERN CONFERENCE MEN'S BASKETBALL TOURNAMENT

March 14, 2025

Todd Golden

Thomas Haugh

Walter Clayton

Bridgestone Arena

Florida Gators

Postgame Press Conference

Florida 95, Missouri 80

THE MODERATOR: We are joined by Florida. We'll start with an opening statement from Coach Golden, then take questions.

TODD GOLDEN: Really proud of our group. Great win. Obviously a couple areas. We weren't at our best on the glass today. We were not at our best taking care of the basketball. But we did a lot of great things as well.

Really efficient. 61% from the field is incredible. Our guys did a great job of putting the ball in the basket. I thought we did a good job of executing the scout in terms of out of personnel. A big thing tonight was limiting Grill's ability to get threes off as well as 35, Crews. We limited them from the three-point line. We thought that would be a winning formula for us.

At this time of year, playing a team like Missouri in the quarterfinals, they're a very good team. I think they have a chance to make a run. Dennis has done a good job this year. Proud of this win, playing in the quarters of the SEC Championship. Felt like a Sweet 16 game tonight. Two teams that could do a really good job in March Madness next week.

THE MODERATOR: Questions for players.

Q. How important was it to come out and set the tone early?

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Very important. I think a lot of games this year we haven't come out as aggressive as we should have. That was very important. Will got us started off with a lot of shots he made. Doing a good job on the defensive end getting the ball up.

Q. The looseness with the ball was a little uncharacteristic for you, the turnovers kept them in the game. The offensive rebounding also. What were they doing to cause y'all problems?

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: I think it wasn't as much them as it was us. I think it was especially me, I take a lot of blame for that. We got sped up a little bit rather than playing fast, which is our pace, but not too fast.

I think we made a lot of shots during that run, but we were turning the ball over a lot.

Q. On the glass?

THOMAS HAUGH: Coach said in the locker room we need to get back to where we were in earlier in the season these last couple games with offensive rebounds. I know this team will. We'll be good.

Q. Thomas, one thing about this team is you guys as bigs pass with each other very well. What does that do to opposing defenses when you are able to move the ball? What's that chemistry like?

THOMAS HAUGH: Yeah, I think we're a tight-knit group. Coach Hartman does a good job in practice working on that stuff, the drill. Extra passes to the guards. I think it correlates to the game really well.

Q. What did you see out of the Missouri defense in the first half compared to the second half?

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Kind of doing the same thing in the first half and the second half. They were coming out more on me, chopping in a sense. That opened it up for our bigs, set a screen, catch that ball in the middle of the floor.

Q. Thomas, obviously the energy you played with down the stretch, the ability to focus in and hit some big free throws. What was going through your mind? How did you concentrate?

THOMAS HAUGH: I worked a lot in the summer. My foul shot percentage was really bad last year. That was an emphasis for me, that and three-point percentage. Kind of showed in the game today. I was able to step up and knock 'em down.

Q. How did you guys feel when you knew you were getting a rematch with Mizzou? Give you extra motivation going into this game?

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: For sure. We felt we dropped that one at home. We didn't come out and play how we were supposed to play. We didn't do our job.

Happy we got a chance to come out, play them again, get it done this time.

Q. They lit it up from three in the first game. How much did you have an emphasis on that?

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Huge emphasis on the three. Our approach on it tonight, coach said don't even let 'em get 'em up. Not even an attempt. I think we did a good job of that tonight.

Q. You mentioned the 16 turnovers. I don't think you guys had a turnover in the final seven minutes of the game. How important do you think was maintaining possession?

THOMAS HAUGH: It's all you, you're the point guard (smiling).

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: I ain't gonna lie, I was going to give that question to Tom. Can you ask it again?

Q. No turnovers in the final seven minutes. How critical was that?

WALTER CLAYTON JR.: Very critical. We talked about it in the huddle, get stops, get them one shot and get it out. Get a good shot up. Anytime we get a good shot up, high percentage it's going in. Not turning the ball over, getting a shot up. That was definitely part of the last seven minutes.

THE MODERATOR: Gentlemen, y'all are dismissed. We'll continue with questions for Coach Golden.

Q. I think I saw you kick the stool about seven minutes to go after one of the turnovers. How gratifying was it to see it come together down the stretch?

TODD GOLDEN: It was very gratifying to win the basketball game.

Q. You mentioned the emphasis from three. I know that's a big thing for you, not just them making threes, but not even getting them up. 29 attempts in the first game. How do you feel you did so much better tonight with that?

TODD GOLDEN: Again, in the first game, we did not play very well. I didn't think we came out with the aggressiveness we needed to to perform well.

Tonight we obviously made a clear emphasis to try to limit their three-point shooting, specifically 31, Grill, 35, Crews. We thought if we limited their attempts that we'd be in really good shape or give ourselves the best chance to win.

We did do that. We held them -- I think they were 0-4 combined in the first half. Grill got going in the second half with a couple big shots. We fouled him on one three-point attempt. We wanted them to try to beat us inside the three-point line. A part that did not help us that way was our inability to get rebounds defensively tonight. They scored better than we would have hoped.

Limiting their three-point shots definitely gave us the best chance to win tonight, and our guys did a great job of taking that away from them.

Q. On the offensive rebounding discrepancy, how much of that had a factor in the amount of shots they missed?

TODD GOLDEN: Still they got 18 offensive rebounds. We had 23 defensive rebounds. That's not a very good percentage. For us, I guess it was kind of the same.

Neither team did a good enough job keeping the opponents off the offensive glass. We talked about it with our guys after the game, that's an area for us that has been good all year. For us to advance as far as we want, we have to get back to that being a big advantage.

Missouri, they're really tough to prepare for. I think Dennis does a great job of kind of making the game difficult to coach. They run a lot of different defenses. They put so much pressure on you offensively. They just kind of make the game chaotic at times, which obviously wasn't great for us in terms of our ability to take care of the ball or limit them on the offensive glass.

Big picture-wise, getting back on the glass, taking care of the ball is what we need to do if we want to make a deep run.

Q. When it came to taking care of the ball, Walter mentioned being hurried. What is that balance between playing fast and not getting hurried, what did Missouri do to speed you up more than you wanted to?

TODD GOLDEN: We were definitely, like, pretty jacked up for this ballgame. Anytime we get a miss, we want to play fast, get the ball up the floor, kind of play out of our early game, transition offense.

I think an area where we did a poor job was being organized after made baskets. We had a couple different guys taking outlets. We weren't getting our spacing right, getting set. We had some careless and uncharacteristic turnovers. We stepped out-of-bounds twice in the corner. Back foot, one-handed passes. Things we generally do a really good job of we just didn't do a good enough job of tonight.

Q. The spark Tommy provided tonight. It seemed like he had some pretty good matchups going. What was working for him?

TODD GOLDEN: Yeah, he was fantastic. I thought he did a great job. First of all, knocking his free throws down. This game, they were downsizing for sure. Not having Mitchell, they tried to spread us out and kind of put us in precarious positions defensively.

Tommy is a front court player that can switch, that can keep guards in front. For him, in these types of games, it's more opportunistic to have him on the floor. He did a great job defensively. I thought he did a great job cleaning the glass in the second half.

Offensively for the most part he had a couple uncharacteristic turnovers. The high-lows he usually completes all the time. He was sped up. He's such a winning player. You want to keep him out there, see different ways for him to impact the game.

Again, the defensive versatility, his ability to rebound, his ability to make free throws. I think he's shooting like 85% from the foul line this year. It's really impacted his growth as a player and obviously made us much better.

THE MODERATOR: Coach, thank you.