SAN FRANCISCO — A dominant performance on the boards (plus-22) and a balanced scoring attack (six players in double figures) helped No. 1 seed Florida top Maryland 87-71 on Thursday night in the Chase Center, sending the Gators to the Elite Eight. Florida will meet the winner of Arkansas-Texas Tech for a spot in next week’s Final Four.

Florida had just a two-point lead at halftime, mostly the result of self-inflicted wounds (13 turnovers). But the Gators looked much more like the hottest team in basketball — they’ve won nine straight, including three in the SEC tournament — after the break, outscoring Maryland 47-33 in the second half.

“The first half, I thought we were a little casual with the basketball, put ourselves in some predicaments,” Florida coach Todd Golden said. “The second half, we did a much better job taking care of the ball.”

Florida turned it over only four times after the break. In other lopsided stats, its bench outscored Maryland’s reserves 29-3.

The Gators are arguably the most loaded team in the field, but their depth took a hit — at least momentarily — when starting center Alex Condon badly twisted his right ankle and hobbled to the bench. He went back to the locker room immediately and got precautionary X-rays to rule out anything season-ending. Condon sprained the same ankle earlier this season.

“We just got out of sorts a little bit,” Golden said about Condon’s injury. Halftime gave Florida a chance to recalibrate, and Golden harped on the importance of taking care of the ball.

Condon was ruled questionable to return and spent most of the early part of the second half running up and down the tunnel and bouncing around, trying to figure out how much weight he could put on his ankle. He re-entered the game with 13:29 left and finished with six points, four rebounds and two assists in 14 minutes.

Will Richard led the Gators with 15 points, while Alijah Martin (14 points, seven rebounds), Thomas Haugh (13 points, nine rebounds) and Rueben Chinyelu (10 points, eight rebounds) all had productive nights as well.

The Terps were led again by sensational freshman Derik Queen (27 points, five rebounds, two steals) in what is all but certainly his last college game. Queen, a Baltimore native whose commitment to the state school was a coup of sorts for Maryland basketball, is projected as a lottery pick in the upcoming NBA Draft. He broke Maryland’s freshman scoring record (594 points) on Thursday.

The bigger question for Maryland: Did Kevin Willard coach his last game for the Terps?

Willard has been rumored to be a candidate for the vacancy at Villanova for weeks and spent most of Maryland’s recent postgame news conferences publicly blasting his school for its lack of NIL resources and wondering aloud what he had to do to get a bigger commitment from his administrators.

Adding to the awkwardness of the situation is the fact that just before Maryland’s first NCAA Tournament game, athletic director Damon Evans left to take the same job at SMU. Who Willard was negotiating with is anyone’s guess.

“I don’t know what I’m doing, I’ll just be honest,” he said after the loss to Florida. “I haven’t talked to my agent, haven’t talked to my wife. I made a promise to this team that I was just going to just focus on this team. … I have an agent. I’m sure he’s talking to people because that’s what agents like to do.”

His recent comments and actions have clearly angered some of the Maryland faithful: Willard was loudly boo’d when the Terps left their hotel Thursday afternoon to head to the gym.