Florida Gators ether No. 6 Tennessee both on and off the floor

The Florida Gators held the No. 6 Tennessee Volunteers to just 29.3% shooting and forced 18 turnovers in a shocking 75-49 win on Saturday night in Gainesville in what is the upset of the season in SEC men’s basketball.

The Volunteers (10-2, 4-2 SEC) only had one player in double figures, forward John Fulkerson. They trailed for 38:21 of 40:00 of game time, got out rebounded 44-36, and were just 3-18 from three-point range. It was a disaster from the tip-off, and turned into a laugher in the second half.

And speaking of laughs, in the wake of sports talk radio host Dan Patrick saying Tennessee’s newly-fired football coaches were paying recruits with McDonald’s bags full of cash, a sports information director somewhere needs to be nominated for an award for this final score graphic:

I’m not sure how I can keep typing with all this shade on my monitor. What an absolute savage. A tip of the cap in respect.

Four Gators ended up in double figures, led by Noah Locke’s 14 points. UF got 42 points in the paint and showed a dominant post presence for the first time since the loss of Kevontae Johnson. It’s a big win for a team that needed it to stay in any sort of NCAA Tournament contention, and might be enough to spark the Gators back into the national conversation.

But despite a blowout of a Top 10 team in the Old O’Dome, it’s possible people might be talking about the beating on social media as much as the one on Billy Donovan Court. Tennessee was a 7-point favorite at DraftKings Sportsbook. Whoops.