MVG: The Gators continue to go undefeated this season in games they lead at half, with a dominating 104-82 SEC Tournament Semi-final victory over the Alabama Crimson Tide. Once again, the star of stars was Gator All-American Point Guard Walter Clayton Sr who scored 22 points with 3 rebounds, 6 assists, 3 steals and ZERO turnovers for a Value Score of 120. No one else came in as a close second in Value Score but not less than five Gators had solid value scores between 68 and 62 Value Credits making this a total team victory. Rueben Chinyelu led the team with 10 rebounds (5 O, 5 D) and created clear driving paths to the basket for the guards. Likely SEC 6th Man-of-the-Year, Thomas Haugh continues to score inside and outside, making hustling rebounds and defensive contributions toward the Gators victory. Alijah Martin played tough on offense and defense. The Gators explosion in the second started after Martin was mugged by Chris Youngblood, resulting in a flagrant foul. Alijah calmly canned his two free throws starting a 41-19 run that essentially put the game out of reach. Will Richard matched Martin's 16 points as the Gators second leading scorer with some sharp shooting from distance and mid-range. Finally, Micah Handlogten matched Chinyelu with 10 rebounds and played a key role as part of the Gators two-big-man tag team, forming a very disruptive presence for Alabama, especially after the Tide lost Grant Nelson, their best big man to injury early in the second half. Box Score Value Leaders Clayton Jrc.l..il120 Chinyeluc.li......l68 Haugh.ml..llmllr.66 Martin.hl.....ll....66 Richard.hllllll.....64 Handlogten.hlll..62 Click on thumbnail below for all Value Scores. Value Credits* are assigned as follows: +5 credits for each Steal and Assist +4 credits for each Point scored, Rebound and Block .-5 credits for each Turnover .-1.5 credits for each Field Goal Attempt .-0.75 credit for each Free Throw Attempt * Value Credits are based solely on Box Score data and do not reflect total game contributions by players SEC SF: .ll.. l Box Score Post Game:..ESPN Video Highlights The Florida Gators play the Tennessee Volunteers for the SEC Tournament Championship at 1:00 on ESPN. This is a rubber match between two teams that won in blow out games against each other, each winning on their home court. We need traveling Gator fans to make their presence known as the game is played in Nashville Tennessee.
Workload Managment: Coach Golden capped player court time to 30 minutes given the SEC Tournament requires teams to play on consecutive days. Tournament scheduling makes it virtually impossible for a lower seeds to win the $EC tournament. They would have to play and win in five consecutive days, often without 24 hours to recover. IMO, this is brutal and abusive to the athletes. I'm surprised more players don't get injured on teams that play 3-4 consecutive days to advance in the tournament. It's policies like this that generate $M's in revenue for the conferences and justifies players getting whatever they can from NIL agreements. I hope someone does a study showing the marked increase in injuries occurring during conference tournaments and how it may negatively impact team performance in the far more relevant NCAA Tournament.
Seems like we blocked more than 4 shots. A lot more! Regardless, I thought our rim protection defense was amazing against Bama. I started having Noah/Horford flashbacks!
