Florida Men’s Basketball Falls In SEC Championship Game, Loses Handlogten To Injury

This one hurts. No need to sugar coat it.

Final. Auburn Wins, 86-67. pic.twitter.com/r92eynO2y3

— ESPN 98.1 / 850 WRUF (@ESPNGainesville) March 17, 2024

The Florida Gators men’s basketball team lost in the SEC Tournament championship game to No. 12 Auburn, 86-67, Sunday at Bridgestone Arena in Nashville, Tenn. The Gators also lost starting center Micah Handlogten to an injury suffered early in the game.

Later Sunday, Florida (24-11) received a seven-seed in the South Region of the NCAA Tournament and will face the winner of the 10-seed First Four matchup between Boise State (22-10) and Colorado (24-10) on Friday in Indianapolis. Boise State and Colorado will play Wednesday in Dayton, Ohio.

Our game will be at 4:30 on TBS! https://t.co/nGayd5OwUj

— Florida Gators Men’s Basketball (@GatorsMBK) March 18, 2024

Auburn (27-7) was led by tournament MVP Johni Broome with 19 points and 11 rebounds. For the Gators, Zyon Pullin had 15 points but went 4-for-14 from the field.

Heartbreak From The Jump

In just less than two minutes into the game with the score 5-2 Tigers, Handlogten went down with a terrible leg injury. The 7-foot-1 sophomore was quickly attended to by Bridgestone Arena medical staff and taken off the court on a stretcher in an air cast before being taken to Vanderbilt University Medical Center.

Before he left however, his parents, UF coach Todd Golden and all of his teammates made sure to extend a hand embrace.

https://twitter.com/GatorsMBK/status/1769417264032256394

After the game, Golden began to choke up a bit when talking about Handlogten exiting the game due to injury. He was emotional not because he lost his starting center, but because he hated to see someone like him go through that.

“I feel for him,” Golden said. “He’s a great kid. Obviously he fractured his leg. I think he’ll probably have surgery later today, tonight. Hopefully he will have a quick and speedy recovery.”

Weathering The Storm

As you can imagine, an injury like this can impact a team. Indeed, it did.

stuffed. pic.twitter.com/qMzayViMRa

— Auburn Basketball (@AuburnMBB) March 17, 2024

Golden said the injury “took the wind out of our sails.” Since Handlogten went down, the Gators went on a 1-for-11 skid from the floor that had Auburn up 16-8.

The scoring was abysmal in the first half for the Gators who were playing their fourth game in four days. They finished going 0-7 from 3 and 9-of-32 from the field. But because of their 92% free-throw shooting (12-13), they were able to close out the half down eight, 38-30.

So Close Then So Far

When six-seeded Florida cut the deficit to one early in the second half, things were looking like a repeat of the Texas A&M game from the day before. Well, that was not the case.

https://twitter.com/AuburnMBB/status/1769442853057339544

It was 45-44 Auburn at the 17-minute mark, then the Tigers pounced. They went on a a 7-0 run to bring the lead back to eight. From that point, it was lights out.

Four seed Auburn shot 64.3% from the field and 4-9 from 3 in the second half. Combined with Florida only making one 3 for the entire game, the Tigers began to slowly build their lead to as much as 21 at the end of the game.

Not being able to find answers offensively, the Gators collapsed and were not able to find any momentum, especially with Tyrese Samuel spending a lot of time on the bench with four fouls.

In the end, Auburn’s defense was too much.

Up Next

The Gators will make their 22nd NCAA Tournament appearance and first under Golden. Friday’s game is at 4:30 p.m. on TBS.