GAINESVILLE, Fla. – Todd Golden was the one who said it, but he couldn’t speak his “We’re going to beat them anyway” prediction into existence. That would be left to his Florida players. 
 
Turns out, the Gators had their coach’s back. They didn’t just beat Southeastern Conference rival Alabama – and nefarious G League acquisition Charles Bediako – but smacked the Crimson Tide into 100-77 submission Sunday at sold-out Exactech Arena/O’Connell Center.
 
Forward Alex Condon poured in a season-best 25 points, with wing Thomas Haugh adding 22 points and five boards. Center Rueben Chinyelu tallied his SEC-best 13^th double-double with 14 points and 17 rebounds, while point guard Boogie Fland rang up 15 points, eight assists and a school record-tying eight steals during a game the Gators (16-6, 7-2) led for all but two minutes, 19 seconds. The win was UF’s second straight, seventh in the last eight and kept UF a game back of first-place Texas A&M in the SEC standings. 

Florida, which is idle during the week, plays at A&M Saturday. This one made for a pretty good confidence-builder. 

  

“To come out and impose our will on them and beat them like we did on the glass … ,” Golden said as he scanned the box score from the post-game media podium. “We scored 72 points in the paint.” 

 

Repeat: 72. 

 

BEAT EM ANYWAYS#GoGators | @WellsFargo pic.twitter.com/2RcpIvMrO3

— Florida Gators Men’s Basketball (@GatorsMBK) February 1, 2026

 
The Tide (14-7, 4-4), even with the addition of the 7-foot, 225-pound Bediako, managed 26 points in the paint. That’s a 48-point difference, but it wasn’t the only eye-opening discrepancy on the stat sheet. 
 
How ’bout 25-0 in points off turnovers – UF turned it over just twice, a season low, but forced 18 – and 26-3 waxing in fast-break points? 
 
“They destroyed us in the possession game,” Bama coach Nate Oats said. “Everybody’s afraid of Florida’s front court, and rightfully so.”
 
Make that five straight wins for UF over Alabama the last three seasons, with the Gators averaging 101.6 points in those games and an average victory margin of 16.4 points. 

UF shot 51.3%, including 72.3% from inside the 3-point area, where they went 3-for-13 (23.1%). No biggie. The Gators more than made up for their usual errant long balls by moving the ball near-flawlessly – their first turnover came 24 minutes into the game – and defending the Tide at 43.%, while out-rebounding them 44-33 and turning Bama into a turnover-plagued mess in the halfcourt. The Tide salvaged what might have been a drubbing by 30 or more by hitting 14 of 34 from the arc (41.2%), yet still suffered their worst loss since 2023. 
 
At one point, the Gators stopped the Tide on 11 consecutive possessions and finished with eight “kills,” which are defined by three consecutive scoreless possessions.
 
“We’re at our best when we’re able to get clean rebounds, get out in transition and play that way,” Golden said. 
 
Given the opponent, it was the Gators’ best performance of the season. Good timing, too. 
 
Golden put himself (and his team) out there Jan. 22 when he criticized Alabama’s legal maneuvering that led to the 7-foot Bediako – three years since playing his final game for the Tide; three seasons into his G League career – being ruled eligible via a temporary restraining order that allowed him join the team in midseason. In wrapping the mini-rant on his radio show that night, Golden vowed the Gators would prevail in their upcoming date with the Bediako and the Tide, which was still 11 days and three games away. 
 
The road to Sunday’s rout, however, included a humbling home loss to Auburn that apparently kicked a hornet’s nest of pride in the Florida program. UF responded to that defeat with a 47-point win at South Carolina and chased that all-time SEC margin of victory with a 23-point annihilation of the conference’s winningest program over the last six seasons.
 
“That was a very valuable lesson we learned last week against Auburn, that when we don’t play with the fire and intensity on the defensive end, we’re not as good,” Golden said. “We got to make sure that we continue to focus on that, and I think our players have a great understanding. I thought they showed that today.”
 
UF scored nine consecutive points late in the first half to turn a two-point game, at 32-30, into an 11-point lead. The Gators went to the locker room up 46-36, but scored the first dozen of the second half to surge ahead by 22, with Condon lead the low-post assault on the way to making 11 of his 15 shots to go with six assists. 
 
A week ago, he finished with one point and four turnovers in the Auburn loss. Like his team, Condon appears to have redirected his game.
 
“I feel like I’m just having fun,” Condon said. 

The Tide, who started the day ranked No. 3 in the nation in offensive efficiency, never got any closer than 16 after Florida’s hot second-half start. Bama trailed by as many 27 before the Gators emptied their bench, with everybody’s favorite walk-on, 7-9 center Olivier Rioux, scoring on an offensive rebound to push the Gators to the century mark for the third time this season, but first in SEC play. 
 
Along the way, the 6-foot-10½ Chinyelu fouled out Bediako, who during the first road game of his Bama reunion tour was serenaded throughout by the Rowdy Reptiles with chants of “G LEAGUE DROPOUT!” Bediako finished with six points and seven rebounds over 21 minutes, and was clearly bothered by Chinyelu’s extra 40 pounds and massive chest and shoulders. 
 
“I do not think any of us thought about that. We just play,” Chinyelu said when asked about Bediako’s midseason arrival. “Just playing basketball.”
 
As well as they have all season, in fact.
 
And yet? 
 
“We still haven’t played our best,” Fland said.
 
Take note, SEC. 
 
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.