The SEC Tournament championship matchup on Sunday afternoon between the Tennessee Vols and the Florida Gators was essentially a rubber game.
Tennessee and Florida split their regular season series with the Gators winning by 30 in Gainesville and the Vols winning by 20 in Knoxville.
Unfortunately for Tennessee, Sunday’s matchup went in Florida’s favor with the Gators leaving Nashville with an 86-77 win in the championship game.
The win locked up a No. 1 seed for Florida while the Vols will likely be a No. 2 seed in the NCAA Tournament.
After the game, Gators head coach Todd Golden, who is in his third season at Florida, left no doubt how he feels about Vols head coach Rick Barnes and the Tennessee basketball team.
Golden told reporters that there’s no program that has a better culture or is tougher than Tennessee.
Golden told reporters that there’s no program that has a better culture or is tougher than Tennessee.
“Obviously, we played fantastic yesterday (in a win against Alabama on Saturday),” said Golden. “We got off to a great start (against Alabama) and never looked back…Then you get to play a program like Tennessee in the championship game. Rick Barnes is one of the best coaches in our business — a Hall of Fame head coach. There’s no program that has better culture or that is tougher than Tennessee. For our program to stand up to that and find a way to become victorious today, as I said earlier, I’m incredibly proud of the way our student-athletes have competed, the way they’ve carried themselves.”
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