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Gators Go Up Early, Pounce Grambling State to Stay Undefeated

The Florida Gators score early and often to pick up a dominant win in front of the home crowd

Kyle Lander

The Gators dominate Grambling State to stay undefeated
The Gators dominate Grambling State to stay undefeated / Doug Engle/Gainesville Sun / USA TODAY NETWORK via Imagn Images
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Gainesville, Fla. – The No. 20 Florida Gators men’s basketball team stayed undefeated on Monday, leaving Exactech Arena with a comfortable 86-62 win over the Grambling State Tigers.

The Gators overwhelmed the Tigers on offense, having five players score in double digits and three others who nearly edged that mark as well. 

Additionally, this is the first time since the 2021-22 season that the Gators start the season 3-0. 

Veteran Duo Leads the Gators to 15-Point Lead at Half

The Gators guards got it going early for them on offense, scoring eight of the first 10 points. However, it tailed off a little bit for both as the rest of the team started to contribute on that end of the court.

One of the other Gators who got in on the scoring was Denzel Aberdeen with a vicious slam to put the Gators up 16-8 early in the half. 

From there, it was never really a contest. The Gators mostly held a double-digit lead the rest of the way. Additionally, any time the Tigers felt like they had something going, the Gators responded. 

Overall, It was a good, not great first half for the Gators on offense as they were just 14-for-32 (43.8%) from the field. There were signs of positive regression in the 3-point department though with the offense shooting 5-for-13 from deep in the first 20 minutes of this game. 

One other area that Todd Golden will be happy with is how his team rebounded. The Gators out-rebounded the Tigers 25-10 (+15) in the first half and one player who has helped in this area was Alex Condon. While he didn’t lead the team in rebounds at half, he did bring down four rebounds, which is way more than the one he had last game against Jacksonville. 

As for who were the standout performers in this half, that would be veterans Alijah Martin and Will Richard. 

Martin entered halftime with seven points, five rebounds and two assists. His compatriot Richard ended the first half with 10 points on 3-for-8 shooting and five rebounds. He also added two steals in this half. 

Despite Early Half Struggles Offensively, Gators Finish the Job

It was a rough watch for the first 10 minutes of the second half for both teams, which is both positive and negative. The negative is that the Gators were just 4-for-16 from the field and 1-for-5 from deep. On the other hand, their opponents were 4-for-14 overall and 0-for-2 from 3 during this same stretch. Grambling State also had four turnovers as a team.  The Gators had the free throw line that helped keep their lead intact as they went 5-for-6 to begin the half.

However, the Gators' offense finally started getting into a rhythm from the eight-minute mark onwards. They went on a 12-3 run over the next three minutes that included multiple steals from Richard and an emphatic two-hand slam by Rueben Chinyelu. 

The Gators used this run to fuel the offense over the final stretch of this game, ending the game shooting 11-for-16 from the field after their early struggles offensively. Moreover, they were 6-for-7 from the charity stripe during this stretch as well. 

In the end, the Gators eased to an 86-62 victory over the Tigers to stay undefeated on the season. 

A Team Effort Offensively Leads to a Comfortable Win Over the Tigers

There aren’t many feelings better for a coach than seeing their entire team evenly pour in the points offensively, which Golden talked about this feeling after the game.

“This team is super unselfish, and they play for each other,” Golden said. “And when you have that type of ability to spread it out, it makes you a lot more effective.”

He also referenced one play in particular that spoke to the unselfishness of his team.

“I think a great example of that was Will Richard’s play in transition,” Golden responded. “he got the steal run-out and had the opportunity to go dunk it and said he saw Rueben coming out the back of his vision, dropped it off to him for a big dunk, which was a really, really unselfish play and kind of speaks to our team.”

Continuing on, the Gators had five players score 10+ points in the win over Grambling State. The leader of this pack, which might not have been the first choice by many, was Chinyelu. Chinyelu contributed 14 points on the night and also had three rebounds, two blocks and two steals. Moreover, the 14 points from the big man also tied a career-high in scoring, which, funny enough, was scored against Grambling State back in December of last year. 

Others who had double-digit scoring were Walter Clayton Jr. (12), Will Richard (12), Sam Alexis (12 )and Alex Condon (10). They also had three others who were a point or two off of double-digit points. 

Up Next for the Gators

The Gators end their two-game home stretch as they will travel to Tallahassee to face off against in-state rivals Florida State on Friday at 6 p.m. This game will be televised on ACC Network. 

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Kyle Lander
KYLE LANDER

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