BROOKLYN, N.Y. – Walter Clayton Jr. wasn’t sure exactly when it happened. Maybe it was during his 13-point first half. Maybe during a pivotal second-half run when he scored eight of his team’s 10 points. It could have been after one of his six 3-pointers that bedazzled the Barclays Center crowd and bedeviled the Pittsburgh Panthers.
Whenever it was, the timing was exquisite, and only Rick Pitino could get away with it.
Pitino, the Hall-of-Fame coach who mentored Clayton the last two years about 25 minutes away at Iona, sat courtside for the NIT Season Tip-Off contest and had some words for his former standout guard during a spectacular 28-point outburst that keyed the Gators’ 86-71 defeat Wednesday night of the Panthers in their first-round NIT meeting.
“You still can’t play defense,” Pitino gigged.
Clayton and his current coach, Todd Golden, laughed about the exchange afterward.
“He’s not wrong,” Golden said.
Clayton and Golden could have their post-game fun because the Gators mostly had a blast during a thoroughly impressive performance that had some strong individual numbers, but some eye-popping statistics for the team, as well. UF shot 47 percent for the game, including 53.3 over a second half when the Gators took the game over, and defended the Panthers at a 35-percent clip.
Also:
- Florida outscored Pitt in transition points 24-2, despite getting out-rebounded 46-37.
- The Gators totaled 24 assists to just eight turnovers, outscoring the Panthers off giveaways 19-7.
- The UF bench outscored Pitt’s 28-11.
“They’re a really good basketball team,” Pittsburgh coach Jeff Capel said. “They were very, very physical. This was the first time we’d faced this kind of size and physicality all over the floor and I thought they sped us up, especially offensively, and frustrated us a little bit.”
Midway into the second half, Florida got the game to a pace of its liking mostly because of defense, with the big surge a 10-2 run that turned a one-point Pitt lead into a seven-point deficit in barely 90 seconds. Clayton had eight of the points, including a pair of 3-pointers.
“We’re a team that’s trying to play with more tempo and pace this year,” Golden said.
That team showed up for its first-round game and earned the Gators (4-1) a spot in the tournament championship Friday afternoon against 13th-ranked and unbeaten Baylor (5-0), which waxed Oregon State 88-72 earlier Wednesday. The loss was the first of the season for Pitt (4-1).
Clayton’s 28 points were two off his career high and came on 11-for-17 shooting overall, 6-for-8 from distance to go with five rebounds, two assists, two steals and a blocked shot over 31 minutes.
“Everybody on our team was finding me in the right place,” Clayton said. “What did we have? Twenty-four assists? We were just finding each other and the shots were falling.”
Forward Tyrese Samuel, the 6-foot-10 grad transfer from down the road at Seton Hall, scored a season-high 20 points on 9-for-11 from the floor, 10 rebounds, three assists and three steals without a turnover. Backups Alex Condon and Zyon Pullin rounded out UF’s double-figure scorers. Condon, the 6-11 Australian center, stepped up in a big way after the Gators lost 7-1 sophomore center Micah Handlogten just 49 seconds into the game with an ankle injury. Condon had 11 points, six boards and two blocks, while Pullin, in his second UF game, had 10 points, eight assists, a steal and just one turnover in 29 reserve minutes.
Golden had no update on Handlogten, other than to say he was being evaluated. Handlogten came into the game averaging 10.0 points, 8.7 rebounds and shooting 70.4 percent from the floor in starting every game.
For what it’s worth, Samuel shot 81.8 against Pitt, with his biggest play – and one of the night’s crowd-pleasers – coming during a 14-3 blitz by the Gators that blew open what was a four-point affair, thanks to seven straight Pitt misses and some turnovers. Part of UF’s run of nine straight points was a rebound by Samuel, who didn’t bother to outlet the ball. Instead, he put it on the deck, raced up the floor, coast-to-coast, and finished with a dunk.
On the very next Panthers possession, Condon came away with a steal and threw ahead to Pullin, who finished the break.
“From there on out, I felt like it was our game,” Samuel said. “We had all the right intentions. More attention to details with our bodies and playing more physical on the defensive end, rebounding, pushing the ball and sharing it.”
Florida eventually opened a 15-point advantage, 66-51 with just inside eight minutes left, and it never fell under double digits the rest of the way.
From his high-price seats, Pitino, now coaching about 14 miles away at St. John’s, couldn’t help but smile a few times while Clayton sped by. When Pitino left Iona last spring he put the full-court press on Clayton to go with him. Clayton’s heart, however, was with Florida, closer to his home and family in Lake Wales.
“People ask me all the time if I miss New York,” Clayton said. “I do not miss the weather. I miss the people.”
Those Big Apple people came out for Clayton, who showed out in return. His defense notwithstanding.
