Boogie Fland Finally Looks Like the Player Florida Hoped For: ‘These Things Can Be Mental’

Late in the second half, the Saturday crowd inside the O’Connell Center were heard screaming: “Let’s go Boogie!” while the DJ played every song with “Boogie” in the title he could find.

The 10,182 screaming fans, who included Florida legends Mike Miller and Vernon Maxwell, had the front-row seat to Boogie Fland’s breakout game. The Arkansas transfer dropped 23 points, five assists, and four steals, leading Florida (11-5, 2-1 SEC) to a 91-67 win over No. 21-ranked Tennessee (11-5, 1-2 SEC) in an SEC regular-season game.

Boogie Fland Breaks Out Of His Slump To Help Florida Beat Tennessee

Shedding his signature dreadlocks, the new-look Fland went 9-of-13 from the field, including 3-for-6 from deep, torching the Volunteers’ defense that showed no respect to the sophomore guard, who was mired on a 0-for-15 slump and 19% overall clip from the 3-point line.

Fland made Rick Barnes pay for every missed coverage. The 6’3″ Bronx, New York, native looked like the old five-star recruit who made 1.7 3-pointers per game and registered a 34.0% clip during his stint with Arkansas last season.

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After the game, Florida coach Todd Golden talked about Fland’s breakout game and his new look. He believes that sometimes you really have to work something out of the ordinary to find your mojo back. Luckily for them, Fland’s new hairdo broke his slump and guided them to a big win over a Top 25 team.

“He looks great; he looked great before,” the Gators coach said of Fland. “Sometimes, these things can be mental. Just gave him an opportunity to kind of start fresh, and he played fantastically from start to finish.

Five of Fland’s teammates also produced double-digit outputs for Florida. Center Rueben Chinyelu tallied a 17-point, 16-rebound double-double while Urban Klavzar contributed 15.
Thomas Haugh finished with 13 points while Alex Condon and Xaivian Lee added 11 and 10 points, respectively.

Gators Dominate Volunteers in One-Sided Affair

As a team, Florida ruled almost every stat, shooting 48% from the field and limiting Tennessee to 43%. The Gators shot better from the free-throw line, making 20 of 25 attempts for an 80% clip, as compared to the Volunteers’ 66%.

They had more rebounds (41-30), assists (14-8), and steals (13-7). The most glaring stat of the game was the turnovers, as Florida forced Tennessee to commit 18 errors while scoring 30 points off them. The Gators ran over the Volunteers on fast break points (26-13) and had more points in the paint (38-30).

Freshman Nate Ament paced the Volunteers with 17 points while Ja’Kobi Gillespie and Jaylen Carey added 12 each. Despite shooting a 40% clip from the 3-point line, Tennessee had a hard time running its plays, as Florida was ready to anticipate every move.

Fland’s explosion gave Florida its second straight win after starting conference play with a loss to Missouri. It was the Gators’ 15th consecutive victory at their home court and 37th of their last 39 games in the O’Dome.

Proving their dominance at home, the win against Tennessee helped Florida post its sixth straight win against ranked opponents at the O’Dome. What’s more amazing is the fact that they’ve ran over their opponents by at least 15 points.

As for Fland, now is the time to prove that he’s better than Walter Clayton Jr, and sustaining this surge might help a lot in his goal. If Saturday’s game was the breakout game Fland needed to prove he has adjusted to Todd Golden’s system, it’s a good start as the team is expected to make another deep March run. They would need more moments like this to help their campaign.