Gators HC Todd Golden Full of Praise for Thomas Haugh, with One Exception

Providing a great platform for our program to compete against a great team on opening night. Miami is a very good team. They're a very good team. We knew that coming into this game. We got to watch them put 109 points on Vanderbilt last week, which obviously is an incredible effort. And I think that game gave us the proper respect, both from a staff and a player standpoint, to make sure that we approach this game with great focus and intensity. And, um, You know, I don't think the game let us down. I thought we did a great job. Really proud of my team. I thought we competed the right way. I've challenged our team over the past couple weeks that we can't just compete and play hard. We have to play smart as well. And I thought we did a better job putting those two things together tonight. This guy to my right, best player on the floor tonight, as you can tell by his numbers. I'm going to give him a hard time about his free throw shooting later. But everything else was just insane effort. Both on the offensive end, you know, his numbers speak for themselves. But I thought his defensive effort tonight on number seven for Miami was elite. And the guys did a great job executing our defensive game plan. I thought our guys stepped up and shot the ball really well. And. Last thing, I want to credit our bench. You know, I thought the combination of Domon Petrovic, Irbic Klovzar, and Isaiah Brown were a huge lift for us tonight. They got some criticism in the preseason. I was criticizing them a little bit in the preseason and asking them for more, and they delivered for us tonight.