I think there is no question we have the length and athleticism on our team to be great defensively, so why aren't we? To young? Need more time to gel? Need better coaching? Regardless, to me the problem last night seemed to be we lacked discipline on the offensive side of the ball, unless our offense is meant to consist of poor shot selection, guys driving into the lane with no plan or jacking up step back 3 pointers, one-on-one basketball that results in turnovers, etc. Guys were never in a position to offensive rebound. Every time our D got a stop and it looked like we could get the lead down into single digits, we'd take another bad shot and UCONN would come down and make an easy basket. I didn't see many set plays or trying to get guys in mismatches, just take your guy one-on-one and hope you score. It felt like the whole game we had one shot at the basket per possession, except the one time JJ got a rebound off a KR missed three and kicked it back to him and he made the three. Credit UConn, though, they smothered the 3 point line and managed to double CC at times, causing bad shots and turnovers. A very well-coached team on both sides of the ball and worthy of their #5 ranking, so it would seem.
My bro-in-law lives right next to the URI campus and they were disappointed when Hurley left. He's an excellent coach, and was going to stay in the NE. What did he do to build his roster considering he came into a mess? I know UCONN has more pedigree, but I'm wondering what the best blueprint is for building a roster at UF level school. I can't imagine it helps that Golden's relationships were probably out West.
I’ve thought for basically the entire 1 and done era, the recipe is to load up on prospects rated around 50-150. So guys that theoretically would not have “1 and done delusions”. Then if you are lucky you get that top 10 talent once in awhile. Obviously the transfer portal complicates that. But I hope we get to a place where we are just plugging 1 or 2 immediate holes with the transfer portal, viewing them more like a 1 and done, rather than filling more than half our roster that way. Ultimately it’s about scouting, White actually recruited quite ok “on paper” but almost 100% of his HS recruits either busted or transferred after 1 or 2 years. If you recruit 100% busts it’s like recruiting 1* players. No idea why the bust % was so high under White but that can only go to the coaches (basically has to be bad scouting or misusing players when they got here). If you recruit 4 or 5 kids every year maybe not everyone is happy with their role, so losing 1 or 2 is understandable, going 0 for 5 is just failure.
What baffles me is the entitlement of our fans. We have a first year coach with a team consisting of many transfers, yet fans are "embarrassed" that we got blown out at home by a team that is better than us at every position. If and when this teams gells, it will be much better, but as of now, they are more of individuals. I read a few complaints last night about we play "hero ball" against better teams. Guess what? We are not playing as a TEAM because they aren't accustomed to playing together; they need to GELL to become cohesive. Until that happens, this is what we have. Dan Hurley went 19-12, 15-8, 23-10 in his first 3 years at UCONN. It takes time. Quit your bitchin and give them time.
Fair point. One of the frustrating things about Mike White was his inability to retain players to grow, he struggled with identifying talent and then developing the talent to stick around and grow and develop chemistry. Golden at least deserves that opportunity before he catches too much flack, in my opinion. Crowd was atrocious last night (except for the students and the UConn fans). Administration has to look at ticket pricing, ticket packaging, and making reselling of tickets easier. I know it was a 9PM start, but I have a hard time believing we couldn't do better putting people in the seats against the #5 team in the country and our only decent home opponent before SEC play begins. Announced attendance was over 9,000 (approximately 90% capacity). Can we please stop using ticket sales to identify the "attendance." (yes, I know everybody does it...that doesn't make it useful or right) Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
I was going to make the same point. We have some good players. UConn has more and better players at every position, and they're all playing within their roles. That was obvious. I do see progress in our team. Right now, we're NIT level, but we have the potential to be much better.
Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama come to my mind as we better wake-up. We have an odd sortment of players, but like CMW, our two bigs are thin but talented, get pushed and shoved, and the refs let it go as it’s “basketball”. We need strong athletic, agile bigs that have some moves. It seems everybody has them except us. The NIL this year will have to be doled out or all these types players will be going to all the teams we play. At least if we commit to the NIL as a program, we “can” compete. But, we have to get players that good teams want like Tennessee goes after, they are better than last year and more physical. Not good. I like CTG and want him to succeed, but if you can’t get named players other teams want, your stay will be rocky. The old admin at UF didn’t understand recruiting, CTG just swinging at talented physical players has been tried before, you have to use the NIL and push our backers at UF to want to compete, you won’t do this by going the route of nice guy, in recruiting it is showing kids how they are going to be paid at Florida, the new reality in sports, the kids are talking money between themselves at camps and AAU games, and all star games. Up until the NIL, the way to get all the best players, you had to get agents, shoe company reps, to pay all the handlers, families and steer them to you, like Kentucky, Kansas, Arizona, Duke, North Carolina, all legal in the minds of the NCAA, sportscasters, top players, everybody is happy. These same teams still have these connections and more freedom than ever to pay them with the NIL now. We need our own agents to know we are going to get them the biggest NIL package available or we will continue to be bottom feeders. In football we are doing this and players are listening, either you are a coach that understands this or we are dreaming of a coach that is experienced in high level recruiting and winning. What is it going to be, man up or just take the money and run away like CMW. Time will tell!
Did you see UConn offensive players sprinting full speed around a screen or multiple screens from one side of the court to the other to get the look they wanted....it would be nice to see our players sprinting to get open at full speed and not half speed...that is something that can be fixed immediately.
Thanks AKA, fellow posters. I was hoping WVU was an "aberration" but last night suggests otherwise. That was an UGLY beatdown. UCONN is so far ahead of us I don't know where to start. We play them 4 times we get broomed IMO. I would pencil them into the great 8, maybe final four right now. Riley disappointed me last night. Colin got abused. Hey, it's early, much work to do, but I was hoping for a more competitive start. The SEC can be unforgiving, I hope coach can make a few adjustments to help the team.
While I mostly agree, I think it's especially difficult for the fan base to be patient in a year when both football and basketball are essentially rebuilding at the same time from the bottom up. Golden needs time, most certainly. It's not his fault (nor Napier's) that both programs needed a culture overhaul. I'm praying they both get it done.
Most alarming to me is there seems to be very little discipline on offense or defense. How many times do we see players take poor shots early in the possession, game after game? Or getting beat on defense and nobody helps out? These are correctable issues but it is alarming when you see those issues not improving. Why are we not seeing adjustments made on defense when we are getting beaten by the same plays repeatedly in a game? Is man to man the only defense the coaching staff knows? You need to be able to adapt on the fly and adjust to game situations. Just not seeing that happening and it is more than a little concerning.
Agreed. That is the problem with young players. They THINK they are trying hard, but they aren't. Coaching is SHOWING them they aren't going as hard as possible. They have to be challenged and pushed or it isn't going to happen for some guys, imo. it's like in golf, you're addressing the ball, and you think you are concentrating, but all you're really doing is worrying.
Maybe I'm crazy, but I see our basketball program as being similar to Texas. I think we have had greater success with the back to back titles, but Texas consistently is a tournament team for the past 25 years but had some ups and downs during the Shaka Era. They went out and hired in my opinion a more proven experienced coach in Chris Beard with 6 years of head coaching experience at a power 5 school and final four appearance. year 1 they went 22-12 and lost in round 2 of the NCAA tourney year 2 6-1 with wins of Gonzaga and Creighton -- no bad losses yet (loss is to Illiniois in OT) If San Fran doesn't make the tourney, does Golden not get hired? I don't think people should ever make comparisons to what happened with Billy and his coaching records. He was an extremely special coach and among an elite list of coaches with multiple titles. Even in retrospect, I think Billy was always perceived as a special coach.
Well, they get a week between games, now. These guys probably need a little break, but I hope these losses don't stew and lead to more frustration. As a group, they seem to hang their heads quite a bit, wearing their emotions on their sleeves. CTG needs to address this and teach them to be more stoic. My fear is that this mediocre play persists/snowballs into the SEC season. They need a breakthrough kind of performance against a quality opponent to regain their confidence. If not, it might be a very disappointing conference season.
My 3 cents to add, I got tired of all the hype I read on here before the season with a new coach, all the players transferring in with high stats, CC coming back, and everyone thinking we had the makings for something special. Not hardly, but I hope they find a way to still make some noise before the end of the year. My point, we have wins against... Stony Brook, Kennesaw State, a 1-9 FSU team, Oregon State, FA&M and Stetson. Whopped dee do! Our losses have not been good at all other than a close one against a 6-3 Xavier. Don't get me started about FAU. We only have games against Ohio and Oklahoma at neutral sites before the SEC grind hits. It looks bleak that we can expect anything close to a winning season let alone a winning conference record. Not trying to add on to the negativity but look at reality and hope to curtail the preseason hype around a new coach and new players before they get a chance to show it on the court. Some times things don't work out in the first or second year. Sometimes players get better deals to sign at other schools. Its today's world of college basketball and you can't go off of past expectations when everything around you has changed in the last 5 years.
I was a contributor to the hype. Why? We looked like we were at least 2 deep at every position. Lofton was hyped by all the experts out there as a great point guard, and one of the best players in the transfer portal. CC was considered to be one of the best handful of big men in the country. The name of the game is to excel at the 1 and the 5. We looked to be there in spades. Throw in a dynamic new coaching staff and a dynamic freshman in Kugel, and it looked like the sky was the limit. So what happened? The coaching staff has some growing up to do. Lofton is not a top-25 point guard. CC struggles against big, strong athletic big men. Kugel is still adjusting to big-time college basketball, etc. The team looks to me like it’s improving, but it has to improve its defense against screens, and it doesn’t set many on its end of the court. It also has to eliminate stupid shots and careless ballhandling and passing. I think that there will be a gradual improvement, but my expectations have come way down. I would now be happy with a top-7 finish in the conference, but I am making no predictions.
Big fan of preseason hope and pregame hope, if we're wrong, we're wrong. But having hope is fun. Remember this when we go undefeated in SEC play! Go GATORS! ,WESGATORS
Castleton in particular was jogging back instead of sprinting. Saw a few other starters doing the same. This must change immediately.
