SAN FRANCISCO — When Todd Golden returned to San Francisco on Thursday — the west-coast city he coached in for three years, played near in college and frequents now — he had a different itinerary than usual. He wasn’t there to visit those he worked under for over two decades or the restaurants he cherished (although he already checked both boxes, because what does he not have the time to do?). He was there to stamp Florida’s place among the most dominant programs in college basketball.
In a Sweet 16 meeting between Florida and Maryland that featured two top 10 teams and a pair of top 25 offenses, the Chase Center played host to what many speculated would be a tight high-scoring affair. The Terps and Gators ensured exactly that, for a half.
After entering the break with just a 40-38 lead, top-seeded Florida used its historically efficient offensive jaws to tear Maryland apart, accomplishing Golden’s travel goal.
With one minute and 13 seconds left on the clock, Golden turned to the crowd, sending a final, solidifying message to the collegiate basketball world: “We’re here.” In a battle of metric monsters, the top-seeded Gators were indeed present, leveling fourth-seeded Maryland 87-71 behind six players reaching double-digits and a 22-rebound differential.
Florida now advances to the Elite Eight for the first time since 2017.
“It's surreal, to be honest. The thing that I keep kind of going back to is that selfishly and personally I just don't want it to end,” Golden said. “We're playing well at the right time and have an opportunity on Saturday to play our way into the Final Four.”
Through the first 36 games of its season, Florida had only trailed six times at the break. But with two minutes left before halftime on Thursday, it found itself in an abnormal situation, down 36-35.
Part of the cause was the seeming absence of the third contributor in UF’s three-headed scoring beast: senior guard Alijah Martin, who averages 14.6 points per game. The FAU transfer, whose comfort in March Madness has been a talking point through the last two weeks, didn’t log a point in the first 18 minutes of play. But as the thought of the locker room grew ever larger in Martin’s mind, he knocked down Florida’s final shot of the first half and its first shot of the second half — both 3s — en route to an abrupt eight-point Florida lead.
The others who make up Florida’s prolific backcourt followed the typical script. Senior guards Will Richard and Walter Clayton Jr. led UF with 15 and 13 points, respectively, and came up in the moments Florida most needed them.
Arguably more notable than their performance, though, was that of Florida’s depth. Much was made of the disparity between UF and Maryland’s 80-plus point-per-game attacks. The Gators rely on nine true contributors. In contrast, all five of the Terps starters average over 12 points per game, but no one else puts up more than 3.5.
That difference bore its head down the stretch of the game, as junior guard Denzel Aberdeen and sophomore forward Thomas Haugh recorded a combined 25 points off the bench. Eighteen of that came in the second half, as the Terrapins began to tire with three starters recording at least three fouls. Florida finished the game leading 29 to three in bench points.
“We definitely thought, not just specific to Maryland, but we feel like our depth is one of our biggest strengths regardless of who we're competing against,” Golden said. “We were elite in the second half. We did a great job staying aggressive, handling their pressure and their quickness and their length.”
Haugh’s presence was especially noteworthy, as he led the Gators with nine rebounds in an extended 32 minutes. Florida offensive dominance was sponsored by a domination of the glass, out rebounding Maryland by an outstanding 22 boards. That isn’t abnormal for the Gators — they rank No. 5 in the nation in rebound percentage — but against a team guided by an NBA lottery-projected center who suffocates the paint in freshman Derik Queen, it’s eye-popping.
Despite Florida finding its rhythm 2,300 miles away from home, its performance wasn’t without some turbulence.
“What are you f**king doing?”
That’s the question that everyone in the first five rows of the south side of the Chase Center’s bowl heard Golden ask just under a quarter of the way through Florida’s Sweet Sixteen matchup with Maryland. It had been a long 23 minutes since tipoff for the Florida head coach.
Seconds earlier, Alex Condon, a sophomore forward who leads UF’s frontcourt in scoring, twisted his ankle and collapsed to the ground in front of the 39-year-old coach. It was a sight he had seen before when the Australian missed three games in the middle of February with a high-ankle sprain.
“We were just being able to keep our poise in that moment and know it's just us against us,” sophomore center Rueben Chinyelu said about how Florida handled Condon’s time being injured. “And blocking out all the noise out there and just focusing on us.”
The 6-foot-11 forward tested his ankle in the corridors of the Warriors arena during halftime, and just under four minutes into the second half, he returned to the court, commanding a roar from an unexpectedly partial San Francisco crowd. More notable was what happened while he was wandering around The Bay hobbled.
In an unexpected turn, Chinyelu weathered the storm of Condon’s brief, heart-attack-inducing injury stint.
In the early minutes of the second half, Chinyelu, who is known for his defensive presence more than anything else, emerged on the offensive end. As the Gators traveled down the court with momentum, quickly pushing away from Maryland up 46-42, Chinyelu placed himself on the baseline. When Clayton Jr. drove, the 6-foot-10 Nigeria native launched, collecting the ball after the senior guard tossed it up, and quickly threw it down. Less than 40 seconds later, he did the same again off a Martin assist, establishing Florida’s largest lead of the evening at that point, 50-42.
“I think that was a moment where we might have started wearing them down a little bit,” Golden said. “We were able to get some slips on the pick-and-rolls for Rueben. He did a great job catching the ball in tight spaces and dunking it. And we were able to keep our foot on the gas that way.”
He finished with 10 points, only his 10th double-digit performance of the year, and a notable eight rebounds, which aided Florida’s board dominance.
In what will be Florida’s first Elite Eight berth in eight seasons, it’ll draw either third-seeded Texas Tech, which outlasted 10th-seeded Arkansas in overtime on Thursday. With a win against the Red Raiders, Florida will notch another first, as the last time the Gators danced into the Final Four came over a decade ago.
With the opportunity to advance to San Antonio, Texas, to compete in its sixth Final Four in program history, Florida will take the court again in San Francisco on Saturday.
Contact Noah White at nwhite@alligator.org. Follow him on X @noahwhite1782.
Noah is a Spring 2025 Assistant Sports Editor and Copy Desk Chief. He's a second-year journalism major who enjoys reading and shamefully rooting for Tennessee sports teams. He is also a Liberty League Women's Soccer expert.
