Early on in the Final Four opener between the SEC’s regular season and conference tournament champions, it looked as though the story was going to be Florida’s inability to contain Auburn’s interior attack.
In building up its 46-38 halftime advantage, Auburn was +12 on points in the paint and even +1 on the glass against a Gators team that has owned the rebounding battle pretty much all season long. Johni Broome’s injured elbow looked just fine as went to work any time Florida left Alex Condon on an island against him.
But while Broome vanished in the second half, scoring his final points with more than 15 minutes remaining in regulation, it was Florida’s one-two backcourt punch that took the game over en route to a 79-73 victory.
Walter Clayton Jr. had a legendary performance, finishing with 34 points. He single-handedly kept Auburn from running away with the game, scoring 18 of Florida’s 31 points during a 15-minute stretch that spanned halftime. He went 11-for-18 from the field, and it felt like the only times he missed shots were on drives where the Gators fans in the Alamodome were adamantly screaming for a foul.
But it was Alijah Martin who brought the thunder with his two fast-break dunks in the second half. The first “pick-two” gave Florida a 59-57 lead, but it was the second one that was even more emphatic and felt like a back-breaker from which the Tigers never recovered.
Martin only scored half as many points (17) as Clayton, but there were some seriously loud points in the mix there.
That dynamic duo combined for 27 points in the second half, equaling Auburn’s total after the intermission.
