There were a lot of emotions for Florida Basketball ahead of its regular season finale against Ole Miss. It was Senior Night in Gainesville, and as we have learned thoughout college basketball this week, apparently holding Senior Night before the game creates a lot of distractions coaches want to avoid.
Todd Golden said screw that, paraphrasing off course, and managed to not only have a Senior Night before the game but also have team prepared to smack down the Rebels.
Ultimately, Florida cruised to victory to finish the regular season 27-4 and enter the SEC Tournament as near-locks to be a one-seed come the NCAA Tournament.
Florida Basketball: March to March
Florida took a 17-12 lead 10 minutes into the game, but missed threes and turnover allowed Ole Miss to hang around until a late surge put Florida up 38-31 heading into halftime.
As ESPN Bracketology guru Joe Junardi took over half the television screen during the game to explain, a win by Florida would almost guarantee the Gators to be a one seed on Selection Sunday.
So, we are just going to assume Todd Golden's halftime speech was just replaying that clip because within four minutes of coming out of the locker room, the Gators were up 17 points, and any drama in Gainesville was put to bed.
Walter Clayton led the way with 23 points and five made three-point shots. Alex Condon had 17 points while Alijah Martin and Will Richard also had double-digit points. The latter two exited with Clayton together with two minutes to play as their final appearance at a Florida home game.
Golden once again gave nine players at least ten minutes of playing time and reminded America that there isn't a team in the country as deep as the Gators.
As we wrote earlier today, it seems the only way to beat Florida is to either turn into Steph Curry or bank on Florida missing wide open three-point shots.
Florida will be the number two seed in the SEC Tournament, but even a loss in the opening round might not be enough to derail Florida from a top seed come Sunday.