Florida struggled out of the gates, trailing 46-38 at halftime. It was a worrying sign for a team that was top five in the SEC on both sides of the ball.
But the game didn’t end at halftime.
The second half was all Gators as they won 41-27 in that half in large part due to their 13-5 run to start the half.
In the win, Walter Clayton Jr. showed why he might just be the best guard in the country, finishing with 34 points on 11-of-18 shooting from the field and 5-of-8 from deep. Clayton also went 7-of-7 from the foul stripe against Auburn. 20 of Clayton’s points came in the second half of the win.
Clayton scored nearly half of Florida’s points against the Tigers while only two of his teammates finished in double-figures. Those two teammates combined for 29 points, meaning that Clayton finished with more points than each of his two highest-scoring teammates combined.
Two other factors that have been key for winning teams in this tournament remained true in Florida’s victory: three-point shooting and rebounding.
Florida shot 8-of-21 from three-point range in the win, good for 38.1%. That’s much better than Auburn’s 7-25 (28%) shooting night from deep Saturday.
On the glass, the Gators also proved to be the better team, out-rebounding the Tigers 39-30.
During every round of this tournament, no stats have correlated more to winning than three-point shooting and rebounding, and Florida continued to prove that it might just have the edge in both areas over the rest of the field Saturday.