Florida dominates Alabama, despite presence of G League player
February represents when the college basketball season reaches its true form. Teams know who they are — and aren’t. The matchups feel like they come woven with higher stakes. Each play could carry conference or NCAA Tournament meaning.
Then you have afternoons like Sunday when No. 19 Florida (16-6, 7-2 in the Southeastern Conference) bludgeoned No. 23 Alabama 100-77.
An afternoon like that, well, it can feel a little different.
“Today was more of what it looks like for us,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “We’re making sure we get better.”
. A quilt of sleeping bags lay across the cement outside the O’Connell Center through the 22-degree morning. It was a Sunday debacle, giving the SEC supremacy over a sport it historically has listed in the shadows of. Dick Vitale even came to town.
All of those in attendance were there to see one man. For the Florida student section, he went by “G League drop-out.” Others knew him as Charles Bediako, an Alabama (14-6 overall, 4-3 in the SEC) center, who may be a junior. His circumstances are well known, but the abbreviated timeline: played two years at Alabama, declared for the NBA Draft, played two and a half years in the G League. Now, by way of a temporary restraining order against the NCAA, provided by a judge who also moonlights as an Alabama donor, he’s back in college basketball. That judge recused himself from the case this week, but Bediako’s TRO extends into next week.
So there he was in Gainesville, drawing a crowd, but not the story. No, now he’s 1-2 since his return, and, in this one, he scored a season-low six points. He even looked outmuscled at times by a Gators starting frontcourt that scored a combined 61 points. Any moment he touched the ball, boos roared down, no more than when he fouled out in the final minutes. He turned the ball over twice, once to Florida guard Boogie Fland, who came within shouting distance of a triple-double with 15 points, eight assists … and eight steals.
“The disruption he creates on the defensive side is incredible,” Golden said. “He was just taking the ball. … He’s an old-school point guard, man. Eight assists, one turnover. It’s really valuable.”
The rest was pretty simple. Alex Condon, who scored a single point against Auburn a week ago, led with 25. The blossoming All-American, Thomas Haugh, had 22. And center Rueben Chinyelu, just for kicks, had 14 points and 17 rebounds. No Gator who played 15 minutes was worse than plus-10. At one point, Florida had six straight possessions with a block or steal, and Bama ended with 18 of the latter. Florida’s 7-foot-9 frontcourt project, Olivier Rioux, scored to hit the century mark.
“Coach said he already talked smack, so we had to come out and show it,” Condon said after the game, referencing Golden’s distinct words about Bediako: “If he plays, we’ll beat ‘em anyway.”
Even after weathering this battle with a man who will be old enough to look for his own health insurance soon, Florida will next play for the SEC lead at Texas A&M on Saturday.
“We need to come in ready to go,” Haugh said, before Fland interjected with something possibly more moving.
“We still haven’t played our best basketball yet.”