GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Alex Condon scored 25 points, Thomas Haugh added 22 and No. 19 Florida handled 23rd-ranked Alabama and Charles Bediako 100-77 on Sunday.
Florida’s fifth consecutive victory in the series came a little more than a week after Gators coach Todd Golden said “we’re gonna beat ’em anyways” in response to a judge’s decision to allow Bediako to return to college.
This one was so one-sided that 7-foot-9 Olivier Rioux, the world's tallest teenager, played the final minute and scored Florida's last basket.
Boogie Fland chipped in 15 points, eight assists and a career-high eight steals for the defending national champion Gators (16-6, 7-2 Southeastern Conference). Fland dominated his matchup against the league’s leading scorer, Labaron Philon. Fland's eight steals matched the program record set by Clifford Lett in 1989.
Philon, who entered the game averaging 22 points, finished with 14. Aden Holloway led the Crimson Tide (14-7, 4-4) with 19 points.
Florida’s frontcourt was the difference. Condon, Haugh and Rueben Chinyelu combined for 61 points, 29 rebounds and five blocks. The Gators outscored Alabama 72-26 in the paint. Chinyelu finished with 14 points and 17 boards.
Bediako, a 7-footer who is suing the NCAA in an attempt to regain college eligibility despite leaving school and entering the NBA draft, played his third game with Alabama and first on the road. Florida’s student section taunted him with chants of “G League dropout” when he entered the game and touched the ball. Bediako finished with six points and seven rebounds before fouling out with 2:10 to play.
Florida used a 13-2 run late in the first half to help build a 10-point lead at the break and turned the Top 25 matchup into a lopsided affair by scoring the first 12 points coming out of the locker room.
The stat of the game: Alabama had 18 turnovers to Florida's two.
Alabama hosts Texas A&M on Wednesday night.
Florida gets a midweek bye before playing at Texas A&M next Saturday.
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Alabama forward Amari Allen (5) goes up to shoot against Florida center Rueben Chinyelu (9) during the first half of an NCAA college basketball game, Sunday, Feb. 1, 2026, in Gainesville, Fla. (AP Photo/Noah Lantor)
ATLANTA (AP) — The Georgia General Assembly ended its annual session early Friday without a plan for new equipment to overhaul the state's voting system by a July deadline, plunging into doubt the future of elections in the political battleground.
The lawmakers' failure to offer a solution after months of debate raises uncertainty about how Georgians will vote in November and leaves confusion that could end in the courts or a special legislative session.
“They’ve abdicated their responsibility,” Democratic state Rep. Saira Draper said of inaction by Republicans who control the legislature.
Currently, voters make their choices on Dominion Voting machines, which then print ballots with a QR code that scanners read to tally votes. Those machines have been repeatedly targeted by President Donald Trump following his 2020 election loss, and Trump’s Georgia supporters responded by enacting a law in 2024 that bans using barcodes to count votes.
But state law still requires counties to use the machines. No money has been allocated to reprogram them, and lawmakers failed to agree on a replacement.
“We’ll have an unresolvable statutory conflict come July 1,” said House Governmental Affairs Committee Chairman Victor Anderson, a Cornelia Republican who backed a proposal to keep using the machines in 2026 that Senate Republicans declined to consider.
Republican House Speaker Jon Burns said he would meet with Gov. Brian Kemp and “take his temperature” on the possibility of a special session.
Kemp spokesperson Carter Chapman said he Republican governor will examine the situation.
“We’ll analyze all bills, as well as the consequence of those that did not pass,” Chapman said Friday.
House Republicans and Democrats backed Anderson's plan, which would have required that Georgia choose a voting process that didn't use QR codes by 2028. Election officials preferred that solution.
“The Senate has shown that they’re not responsible actors,” Draper said. She added that Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, a Trump-endorsed Republican running for governor, seemed more interested in keeping Trump's backing than “doing right by Georgia voters.”
A spokesperson for Jones didn't immediately respond to a request for comment early Friday.
Joseph Kirk, Bartow County election supervisor and president of the Georgia Association of Voter Registration and Election Officials, said he’ll look to the secretary of state for guidance and assumes a judge will rule to instruct election officials how to proceed.
“This is uncharted territory,” he said.
Robert Sinners, a spokesperson for Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who is also running for governor, said officials are “ready to follow the law and follow the Constitution.”
Burns told reporters that his chamber was seeking to minimize changes this year.
“You can’t change horses in the middle of the stream,” Burns said.
Anderson said without action, the state could be required to use hand-marked and hand-counted paper ballots in November.
Election officials say switching to a new system within just a few months, as advocated by some Republicans, would be nearly impossible.
“They made no way for this to happen except putting a deadline on it," Cherokee County elections director Anne Dover said of the switch away from barcodes. Dover said one problem under some plans is that a very large number of ballots would have to be printed.
Lawmakers seemed more concerned about scoring political points than making practical plans, Paulding County Election Supervisor Deidre Holden said.
“If anyone is resilient and can get the job done, it’s all of us election officials, but the legislators need to work with us, and they need to understand what we do before they go making laws that are basically unachievable for us,” Holden said.
Supporters of hand-marked paper ballots say voters are more likely to trust in an accurate count if they can see what gets read by the scanner.
Right-wing election activists lobbied lawmakers for an immediate switch to hand-marked paper ballots, but the House turned away from a Senate proposal to do so.
Anderson said he wasn’t sure if a special session could escape those political crosswinds, but said Georgia lawmakers must fix the problem.
“This is a legislative problem,” Anderson said. “It’s a legislative solution that has to happen.”
FILE - Voting machines are seen at the Bartow County Election office, Jan. 25, 2024, in Cartersville, Ga. (AP Photo/Mike Stewart, File)
