‘I should've burned a timeout’: Todd Golden reacts to Florida's loss at Duke

The No. 15 Florida Gators rallied from a 14-point second-half deficit at Duke and Boogie Fland hit a go-ahead 3-pointer with 35 seconds left. The fourth-ranked Blue Devils regained the lead on the ensuing possession and UF turned it over in the final seconds to fall 67-66.

Fland had 13 of his 16 in the second half and Thomas Haugh finished with 24, but Duke’s Cameron Boozer led all scorers with a 29-point performance. Here’s everything Florida coach Todd Golden said after the loss in his postgame interview with Sean Kelley.

RELATED: Live Blog: Duke Blue Devils 67, Florida Gators 66

Todd Golden Q&A

On his overall takeaways from the game:

TODD GOLDEN: “I feel like a lot of positives. By far our best effort of the year. We competed the best we have all year tonight, and I thought we stayed together really well. Obviously a really tough venue to play in. They got on top of us a little bit at the end of the first half, and our guys stayed the course, they stayed together, they were resilient. Thought we played an incredible second half to outscore them by 11 on their home floor and take the lead late. We gave herself a chance. It’s going to be tough for me to sleep tonight. I should’ve burned a timeout when they made that last basket to get us more organized, but I thought we could play out of our high-ball screen and make a good decision. We didn’t do it, but that’s on me, and I gotta be better that way. But overall, I’m pleased with effort.”

On the last possession and turnover:

TODD GOLDEN: “As soon as we didn’t get good offense out of our initial action, we should’ve used one. It’s that simple. And, you know, I generally like to let our guys play through those moments. But, I saw we’re disorganized and tried to call it. It was a little too late.”

On Boogie Fland’s performance late:

TODD GOLDEN: “I thought he had a gutsy second half. Really tough, stepped up, made some really, really big shots. That 3 he took and hit to put us up by two was just a ballsy shot, man. That’s what’s what ballers do when they get the opportunity. And I thought he did a great job of kind of handling the environment, handling the pressure, and stepping up, making plays. And the turnover was just one possession. That’s not at all the reason why we weren’t victorious tonight.”

On why it was Florida’s best effort:

TODD GOLDEN: “We beat Duke by 11 on the boards in their own gym. We dominated the glass. I thought for the most part, we were pretty strong with the ball. We were tough. I thought Condo played his sharpest game in terms of making great decisions, keeping us in our offense. I thought Tommy did what he does, you know, continues to make winning plays after winning plays. Rueben had an incredible defensive effort on Boozer in the second half. That guy has good shot to be the No. 1 pick overall, and he shut him down. He made him really inefficient in the second half. We played well enough to win the game. We had some really tough breaks, some really questionable 50/50 calls that didn’t go our way. But I told our guys, you know, to win in a place like Duke, you gotta win by 10. You gotta be 10 points better than the opponent, because they’re gonna get some calls and every 50/50 is gonna go their way. And I thought we were about five or six points better than them tonight, not enough.”