Florida coach Todd Golden explains how the Gators escaped with an overtime win at Kentucky

The Florida men’s basketball team got its revenge on Wednesday night inside Rupp Arena.

After letting a likely home win against Kentucky slip out of their grasp earlier this month in Gainesville, the Gators repaid the favor against the Wildcats.

Powered by the distance-shooting prowess of junior guard Walter Clayton Jr. (23 points and 7-for-13 on 3-pointers), the Gators pulled out a stunning 94-91 overtime win over No. 10 Kentucky.

Clayton nailed an open 3-pointer with only five seconds remaining in regulation to send the game to overtime against a short-handed Kentucky squad that was without a pair of freshman starters in Justin Edwards and Reed Sheppard.

Despite a career night from UK sophomore big Ugonna Onyenso, Florida rode solid scoring nights from graduate student forward Tyrese Samuel (22 points) and graduate student guard Zyon Pullin (21 points) to a significant road win.

The Gators now have their first Quad 1 win (per the NCAA NET rankings) of the season, and are now 3-0 in overtime contests during the 2023-24 campaign.

Afterward, Florida head coach Todd Golden met with media members at Rupp Arena to discuss the victory.

Here’s everything Golden said:

Question about what the difference in the game was after John Calipari said UK beat Florida in most statistical categories.

I thought it was a pretty even game looking at the stat sheet. We hit 12 3s, they hit 10. We made 18 free throws, they made 11. We outrebounded them by two. We each had the same (number of) assists, same turnovers.

So, that’s kind of factually incorrect to be honest.

My stance is that was just a heck of a game, man. It was a heck of a game. I thought (it was) very similar to the game at our gym, you know, where they built a little lead on us in the first half and the opposing team was resilient and kept battling and didn’t let the home team off the hook. There was that stretch in the second half where I felt like we really couldn’t do anything to stop them, they just kept putting the ball in the basket.

But we did a really good job executing on our end and stepped up and hit some big shots, made six 3s in the second half. At the end of the day, really proud of the way we executed down the stretch. We were down four, (Tyrese Samuel) with a big-time layup. I think it was Robert (Dillingham) who missed the back end of a two-shot foul.

And then our guys played really poised in that last 15 seconds. It would have been easy for Zyon Pullin to take a hero shot trying to win the game, or extend the game. He did a great job playing off... Found Walter Clayton Jr. on the wrap, he got his defender up in the air, slide step, that’s a great shot for him. Any shot that he gets up we feel like is a really good shot for our team.

Once we got it to overtime, it kind of felt like we were playing with house money at that point. We weren’t nervous about anything. It was a five-minute game. Obviously if you’d asked us coming into tonight would you have taken a five-minute game to determine the winner we would have said ‘absolutely.’

And again in overtime, Tyrese hitting that baseline jumper kind of got us going and just made some big shots. I thought down the stretch we guarded very well. We held them to 25% (shooting) in overtime. So, it’s a heck of a win for us. We’ve been knocking on the door for a win like this and our opportunities. To be honest, I thought our win against Mississippi State at home last week was a big one for us... Huge win for us and, again, this team that we have, we only have two guys that really played last year: Riley Kugel and Will Richard.

It’s a brand new group. We have some veterans mixed in with some young guys, but this team I feel like is really coming together at the right time.

Question about if he thought Kentucky was going to foul up three at the end of regulation.

Honestly, I wasn’t thinking about it a whole lot during the heat of the moment. Looking back on it, it would have been an opportunity, probably. But, honestly, analytically it’s 50-50 whether they foul or not and my thing is we try to be consistent in those opportunities... They played it out.

Reed (Sheppard) is a really good help defender. He’ll take some chances, but he had just blocked Walter’s shot in the corner a couple of minutes before, showing an ability to close out in a rotation. Walter was just really poised being able to put that ball in the basket.

Question about now being 3-0 in overtime games this season.

That Georgia one was a little different than the one tonight. We had a 21-point lead in the second half, and found a way to trip that off, but found a way to win. Listen, we definitely are comfortable in those moments now. I don’t necessarily think it’s a great strategy to be successful all the time to go to overtime.

But the ball’s bounced our way a couple times in those games. We played really well against Michigan in overtime, in the second overtime. Georgia we played great in overtime and tonight obviously we played really well.

Our guys are proving to be comfortable in those moments. I would prefer to win in regulation to be honest.

Question about Ugonna Onyenso’s performance for Kentucky.

He’s definitely coming on. The first time we played them I think he played under 10 minutes. But you can tell by the way they’ve been playing and how he’s been playing that he’s become more of a focal point in the frontcourt.

He was 4-for-11 from the field, I can live with that. He did a great job making his free throws, I think he was 45% (on free throws) coming into the game if I remember correctly. And then he dominated us on the glass.

I think he’s providing Kentucky with some toughness, some physicality, rim protection. he had eight blocks tonight, I didn’t realize that. He had a heck of a game man, goodness gracious.

He’s playing really well and you can tell that he’s becoming more confident out there as well.

Question about facing Kentucky for the second time in a month and what Florida learned from the first game.

You know, obviously D.J. (Wagner) being out. It’s a big loss for them. He’s done a great job playing the point for them and keeping them organized. I think they lost to UNC Wilmington without D.J. also, back in early December. So I’m mindful of that.

But coming in here and winning was huge for us. We felt like we missed an opportunity at home, and they did their part to earn it. But we led for 30 minutes at home and we didn’t get the win.

Coming into this game, we felt like this was an opportunity to kind of make amends for that first loss. We feel like we’re more confident in this moment: We had won three in a row coming into tonight, and that(previous game against UK) was our first SEC game.

Our guys are just playing really well together. We did a good job on some different (Kentucky) guys, but I think this is our program’s first top-10 road win since 2003. So we’re making strides. We’re heading in the right direction. We have the right guys in the program and we’re just really excited to see where the rest of the year goes.

It doesn’t get any easier for us. We go on the road to College Station on Saturday, that’s going to be a really really tough game. But this should be a good confidence builder for us. To come into Rupp and win is obviously really, really hard to do... Huge win for us and hopefully we can build on this moving forward.

This story was originally published February 1, 2024 at 12:31 AM.

Cameron Drummond

Lexington Herald-Leader

859-242-5257

Cameron Drummond works as a sports reporter for the Lexington Herald-Leader with a focus on Kentucky men’s basketball recruiting and the UK men’s basketball team, horse racing, soccer and other sports in Central Kentucky. Drummond is a second-generation American who was born and raised in Texas, before graduating from Indiana University. He is a fluent Spanish speaker who previously worked as a community news reporter in Austin, Texas. Support my work with a digital subscription