No. 4 Florida Gators win their 1st SEC Tourney title since 2014 by beating No. 8 Tennessee 86-77

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Todd Golden knows exactly what he expects out of his fourth-ranked Florida Gators.

“We have a chance to win a national championship,” Golden said as his Gators accepted the Southeastern Conference Tournament championship trophy Sunday.

Walter Clayton Jr. scored 22 points as Florida won its fifth SEC Tournament title and first since 2014 Sunday, beating the No. 8 Tennessee Volunteers 86-77.

“I came here because I believed in that vision,” Clayton said of winning titles at Florida. “See it come to fruition, it actually happening, is great.”

The Gators (30-4) lost in this game a year ago. This time, they showed off their depth going through No. 21 Missouri, No. 5 Alabama and now the Vols. The result is finishing their 12th appearance in this game all-time to add another title to the list that started with three straight between 2005-07.

“When we are playing like this, I think we are the best team in America,” Golden said.

Will Richard added 17 points for Florida. Alex Condon had 13, Thomas Haugh 11 and Alijah Martin 10.

Richard wore one of the nets around his neck talking to reporters, and the senior made clear he doesn’t want his first to be his last. This is just more motivation.

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“Cutting down the nets is a great feeling, but we want to be able to do that in the NCAA Tournament as well,” Richard said.

Fourth-seeded Tennessee (27-7) goes home still looking for its first title in this event since 2022. The Vols have five SEC championships, but dropped to 1-3 under coach Rick Barnes with this the Vols’ fourth final in the past seven tournaments.

“We came with the idea we wanted to win this tournament,” Barnes said. “Disappointed that we didn’t. We get to go again next week. Hope that we can survive and keep moving on.”

Jordan Gainey led the Vols with a career-high 24 points. Zakai Zeigler had 23 and Chaz Lanier added 11 before fouling out.

“The experience we’ve had, playing the best of the best in this conference is going to help us in March, and that’s the biggest goal,” Tennessee senior Jahmai Mashack said of balancing the disappointment of the loss.

These teams split during the season with each winning routs defending their home courts. The Vols had enough fans that this felt like a home court. Yet they led only briefly, the last less than two minutes in at 6-5.

Florida took over from there. The Gators jumped out to a 34-22 lead and took a 39-30 edge into halftime thanks to a buzzer-beating deep 3 from Denzel Aberdeen. Tennessee never got closer than five in the second half.

Net time

Clayton also had a net around his neck, and he got to cut down a net at Iona in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference where he was the league player of the year before transferring to Florida. He recalled his first title back in high school where no one was allowed to cut nets for a simple reason.

“They had games after us,” Clayton said with a big smile.

Who’s MVP?

There was some momentary confusion during the postgame ceremony when Richard first was announced as the MVP, then Clayton.

Takeaways

Tennessee: Playing this tournament in the Volunteer State doesn’t help the Vols. They are 1-5 all-time in SEC title games in this state. They go home with the last tournament title won in Tennessee back in 1936 in Knoxville.

Florida: The Gators have played a program-record seven games this season with both teams ranked in the Top 10. They now are 5-2 after going 6-16 before this season.

Key moment

Tennessee got within five four times in the second half. After the final time, Clayton’s 3 with 6:48 left started an 11-2 spurt to seal the win.

Key stat

The Gators dominated the boards 39-25 and 15-5 on the offensive glass.

Up next

Both teams await their seed in the NCAA Tournament.

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