Here are my thoughts. This team doesn’t have elite or very good 3 point shooters (think a Lee Humphrey or even Michael Frazier type). I’m not saying we can’t have a guy (ideally two) who can improve to the point of being one of the best shooters in the league. So there will be offensive slumps; hopefully not where the vast majority of the team is missing its shots like last night. I wouldn’t even expect a ton of games where we are on fire consistently. But what we do know is that the way this team defends should keep us in games even when they are having especially poor shooting nights. I’m not sure if it’s a product of how hard we go on defense that effects shooting but regardless I wouldn’t change the intensity on that end for any trade off of better shooting. I guess what I’m saying is we won’t always pull out games like last night and there will be losses because of a lack of good shooting. Don’t expect to suddenly see great overall 3 point shooting as a team. Our offense is generated off ball movement, cutting and overall great hustle, crashing the boards etc. Enjoy the season folks and try not to get on the team in losses unless you are seeing poor effort which I am almost 100% sure that will not happen with this squad. Go Gators!
Not that you want to be comfortable accepting losses but my mind had been made up after watching the first half that a loss would not be indicative of some sort of problem with the team. Ups and downs will happen but the team has moxie that had been missing from years prior.
The 2001 team was pretty incredible defensively, 10 guys deep running the press. Kenyan Weeks, Brent Wright, Major Parker, Justin Hamilton, UD, Miller, Brett Nelson..etc they wore teams out and took over in the late stages of the game. The 2014 team played incredible team defense.
Billy D used to call it "grinding." When the shots aren't falling from the field or the free throw line, find another way to impact the game. Against tOSU, the other ways were turnovers, steals, and winning the rebound battle. On the final two scoring plays, Caselton found a way to greatly impact the game yet he got zero credit on the stat sheet. UF, barring injuries, is going to win a lot of games this season when the offense is on and when the offense is off like against tOSU. I was not expecting this team to be this good.
Hell, we probably would have lost that game if OSU hit that wide open 3 very late. We got another stop, and then made the big time play to win it, but OSU had a chance to just about ice the game with that 3 which would have put them up 4. Sometimes luck is a bit of factor too. Of course there is that saying that you make your own luck, there probably an underlying truth there that really good/aggressive teams get more chances at turning the outcome vs. teams that give up.
Mature take, my partying friend. Agree on all accounts. More importantly, what's on the whiskey menu today? I've graduated from highland scotch to a Michter's sazerac. Tempted to crack a bottle of Weller or Blanton's, but might hold out.
Let's see how it plays out for OSU and FSU. At the moment, OSU is kenpom #24 and FSU #29 (Gators #14). These might end up being mildly strong wins or they might be in that quadrant one. We play five teams in the SEC currently ranked better than OSU (some of them twice). OSU ain't nothing to sneeze at, for sure. I just don't know how strong they or FSU are at this point.
I'd say OSU was getting some lucky and timely baskets that kept them ahead. Lidell's three was like come on man lucky.
Duke will play at Ohio State next week so that will give us a really good indication of how good OSU is. While I don’t think this FSU team is as good as the past few tournament teams, they beat Missouri in Jacksonville by 23 the other night. Have a young team and should get better as season progresses.
I think OSU had something to do with our outside shooting and the easy misses under the basket. If we had been making some of the shots and tips around the basket that we missed the outside shots would not have mattered much. Florida took 60 shots to their 47 and had a better 3 point percentage than OSU did. The physical game may well have had something to do with the outside shots not falling from both sides.
There were times that CC looked tired last night but he seemed to catch his 2nd wind later in the game. That could be a result of OSU starting to flag down the stretch.
Both are good teams. Liddell, Young, and their other big guy are legit. OSU is a tourney team. FSU is solid also and will be a tourney team also.
