Walter Clayton Jr. had 14 points when Florida entered the halftime break trailing Auburn basketball 46-38.
After a Clayton speech to his frontcourt, Florida orchestrated an 11-0 run to take the lead early in the second half.
“Well, for me, Walter kind of got our Bigs together at halftime and gave us a nice little pep talk,” Thomas Haugh said postgame.
“That’s not the game of basketball, that’s not the style of basketball we played at the beginning, out physical us. That gave us extra motivation. Coach Hartman got on us a lot at halftime, too. That helped a lot going into that second half.”
Clayton finished the night with 34 points commanding the Gators offense the entire evening.
“I just let the game come to me. I know I got a bunch of other guys around me who are threats also,” Clayton said postgame. “If you try to double me, Tommy hit that three in the first half, loosened up their defense a little bit, they went away from me. Just read and reacting to the defense. I know I got weapons around me.”
Florida coach Todd Golden broke down how different his team looked in the second half. The Gators scored 14 points off of 12 Auburn turnovers to close out the game.
“We were able to turn up our pressure a little bit defensively. Got them on their heels offensively. We started just guarding more physically in the paint, making it harder for them to put us in the basket. Got some clean rebounds out in transition,” Golden said postgame.
“They controlled the game in the first half. We stuck around and we were hanging in, but we kind of felt like we were getting knocked around a little bit. We controlled the game in the second half.”
Golden also added how they were able to force Auburn’s Johni Broome to three second half points.
“We did a great job of guarding Johni one-on-one in the second half. I think he was 1-4 from the field. We started getting out in transition a little bit, saw the ball go through the basket, started gaining some confidence. We obviously played a really, really good second half.”
Florida advances to Monday’s national championship game and will face off against Houston.
Jerry Humphrey III covers Auburn sports for AL.com. You can follow him on X at @Jerryhump3 or email him at [email protected].
