Urban Klavzar (7) dropped four of his seven 3-balls, including this one on UM's late-closing Tre Donaldson.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In the opening half, Alex Condon asserted himself in the paint, scoring 15 points to help Florida build a double-digit advantage by halftime. After the break, Rueben Chinyelu took over inside, powering his way to a second consecutive double-double.
Meanwhile, steady forward Thomas Haugh contributed consistently, while reserve guard Urban Klavzar made his mark by knocking down four 3-pointers in a career-best showing. The 10th-ranked Gators ultimately pulled away Sunday night, securing an 82-68 victory over the Miami Hurricanes in their Jacksonville Hoops Showdown matchup at VyStar Memorial Arena.
UF began sluggishly and with some sloppy play, but soon leaned on another strong defensive effort to stretch the lead to 18 points and cruise to the finish.
"I thought, in the second half, we were just very competitive, much better handling the basketball," Florida coach Todd Golden said, seated at the post-game podium alongside Condon and Klavzar. "Both of these guys next to me played great games."
Chinyelu also impressed, shooting 7-for-10 from the field to post 16 points and 10 rebounds. Haugh, the team’s leading scorer, added 17 points, nine boards, and three assists across a team-high 37 minutes.
Together, the frontcourt trio of Condon, Chinyelu, and Haugh combined for 52 points, connected on 20 of 35 attempts, hauled in 29 rebounds, and registered four blocks. Had backup 7-foot-1 center Micah Handlogten not exited in the first half after absorbing a forearm to the head – "We held him out for precautionary reasons," Golden explained – the production from UF’s “bigs” might have been even greater.
And so might the final margin.
"They have guys who have pedigree and have played in big moments," said Miami coach Jai Lucas, in his first season at Coral Gables. "We're not there, yet."
Florida forward Alex Condon (21) going to work down low on his way to 19 points and seven rebounds.
Condon, the 6-11 Australian (and one of those "guys" Lucas mentioned), rebounded from a six-turnover outing last week in the win over Florida State by delivering 19 points on 8-for-13 shooting, including a pair of 3-pointers. He also pulled down 10 rebounds, committed just two turnovers in 23 minutes, and exited with 5:11 remaining after fouling out, with the Gators (3-1) ahead by 16.
"I just played free," Condon said.
Klavzar, the sharp-shooting Slovian, entered the contest having missed 11 of his first 14 attempts from long range this season. Against the Hurricanes (3-1), he found his rhythm, connecting on 4-of-7 from beyond the arc and finishing with 15 points in 25 minutes—both career highs.
"I'm just trying to be confident every day," Klavzar said. "The work that we put in has to show up every night. You have to stay confident and take those shots."
That emphasis had been reinforced by Golden and his staff in recent days as the team worked to overcome its early-season struggles from the 3-point line. The Gators entered the game shooting just 21.1% from deep through their first three outings. While Klavzar corrected course, the transfer backcourt duo of Boogie Fland and Xaivian Lee combined to miss all 10 of their perimeter attempts (five each) and went 3-for-16 overall across 57 minutes.
Still, the outcome was never truly in jeopardy, even though the Hurricanes briefly cut the margin to three in the second half and later to four midway through the period before Florida reasserted control.
"Our message to the team after the game was imagine how good we're going to be when these guys start making some shots," said Golden, whose squad still shot 45.8% overall and posted a season-best 31% from distance. "I think our ceiling is really high and I think our floor is really high. To beat a team like Miami by 14 without getting any 3s from them, that's a pretty outstanding effort."
Gators center Rueben Chinyelu (9) finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds and several gestures to the fans.
UF jumped out to a quick 9-2 lead, but a sloppy stretch – five turnovers in under two minutes, each resulting in UM baskets – allowed the Hurricanes to move ahead 14-13. The score was even at 19 when Condon stepped up and buried a 3-pointer. Less than a minute later, he drove through traffic to finish a bank shot.
From that point forward, the Gators never trailed. The Canes managed to trim a 10-point halftime deficit down to three, 44-41, just four minutes into the second half. A Klavzar 3 helped restore momentum, followed shortly by consecutive post-up scores from Chinyelu that pushed the lead back to eight.
With the margin at nine, Klavzar connected on his fourth 3 at the 10:57 mark, stretching the cushion to 11. The lead stayed in double figures the rest of the way, even after both Chinyelu and Condon fouled out within a minute of each other and with more than five minutes left. Golden, missing Handlogten, adjusted by giving sophomore Viktor Mikic his first significant minutes of the season and sliding Haugh to the "5" alongside four perimeter players.
It didn’t matter. The Gators’ trademark defense held firm, limiting Miami to just 33.8% shooting overall and 5-of-18 from beyond the arc. UM forward Malik Reneau, the Indiana transfer, finished with a game-high 22 points but had to grind for them. He attempted 23 shots, made only eight, went 1-for-5 from deep, committed three turnovers, and fouled out after 27 minutes.
"We fouled a little too much, but what I told the team in the locker room [is] we have to be an elite defensive team. There's just no doubt about that," Golden said. "If we want to be the best team we can be, we have to be elite defensively and on the glass. When we play well and shoot well offensively, we ought to be able to beat a lot of the teams we come across."
On a night when the Gators were far from flawless, Miami found out just how much that defense mattered.
Email senior writer Chris Harry at chrish@gators.ufl.edu. Find his story archives here.
