Golden Post Game Comments: AU

Thank you for this post

 

I got banned from the game thread for being too negative, so I guess I will just say thanks for typing up the comments and leave it at that.

 

I understand the play, but Castleton would have probably been called for an offensive foul with a push-off. Should have passed it once he met resistance.

 

Anyone who watched this game objectively saw an improved Gator team that played with great effort. We flat out-played and out-coached Auburn. They got the homecourt bounce and more than a few BS calls. We were a 6pt dog and had the ball w a chance to win at the end.

 

Maybe I missed it somewhere, where was Kugel?

 

Other than the last play, Golden mostly seemed to call a heck of a game. Nice bounce back from a horrid first few minutes.

Unfortunately at 7-6 we just need W’s. We really needed to hold on. We’ve had a few games where we impressed against cupcakes, but effectively we haven’t beaten a quality team AND throw in a loss vs. FAU it rally has us several games behind the proverbial 8-ball. Hopefully Golden is correct and a hot streak is around the corner. This team is clearly going to have to do it with intensity and scrapping. Taking advantage of the speed and athleticism that’s there. We aren’t going to outshoot anybody on a consistent basis.

 

No clue if he’s injured or coaches decision.

But I will say I’d noticed him loafing for a few games. Maybe freshmen wall or Golden sending a message to pick up the effort? Seems like Golden has already had a few different guys DNP in various games, the bench can be an effective motivator!

 

I guess we're the University of Moral Victories instead of the University of Florida.

 

To be honest, this team has 0 shot at the NCAA tournament unless they catch fire in the SEC tournament. The NIT may even be a stretch. They've absorbed too many losses with 0 quality wins so early in the season. They would have to play at an unbelievable level to make up for it.

 

Not sure what you were expecting in season one…looks to me we are right where we are supposed to be in a transition year. I’m not expecting an NCAA trip from this squad.

 

I thought there was growth last night, let’s see if it translates to the next..

 

Exactly. I think we cobbled together a tourney quality roster, but in a transition year learning fairly different systems under a pretty green coach in a loaded conference it was going to be tough. We really needed Jones to bounce back to help our shooting, Reeves to become a consistent offensive threat, Kugel to be an instant contributor, and not to have to rely as much for scoring and play making from transfers like Richard, Bonham, and Lofton, who are more complementary pieces at this stage. None of that has really happened, and if you shut down CC in the post, you can be reasonably confident we won’t burn you from the arc. Moving Castleton to the high post and running things through him really got us going last night, but that’s probably not a long term solution. We will see, though.

I went back to look at Nate Oates in his first two years and it was a really interesting progression. They lost their best player, but with largely the same roster, improved on defense and became more efficient and balanced offensively, and improved massively as a result. That has to be our desired arc. You will lose CC, Jones, Lofton, but if rest of your core buys in, you can bring in some more complementary pieces from the portal and build out from there. Most of our legit potential is pretty young and inexperienced (Reeves, Fudge, Richard, Kugel), so there is a much higher ceiling if portal/NIL don’t ravage us.

 

Richard was our most consistent player a while back. He's done very little lately, though, and nothing last night. I didn't want him taking the last shot.
I don't have a problem with feeding Castleton on the last play because our best offense all night was out of his passing. He was ineffective shooting however, and I didn't like him driving in traffic.
But again, we've lost two straight because of extremely poor 3-point shooting, and we had plenty of open looks in both games. Our guys need to be putting up a thousand 3s every day in practice or this will continue.
I think part of the 3-problem is that we start out by throwing up rushed, long, or covered 3s early in the game. When they predictably fail, we're already entrenched in the missed-shot mindset before we take our first open 3.
On the other hand, Bonham's first look was wide open. The problem there was, he caught it, hesitated, hesitated some more, then shot it and missed badly. Gotta shoot that one in rhythm, dude. Hesitant shots are not shooters' shots.

 

Colin can have the ball in his hands at the end of the game as long as he is 2-3 ft from the basket. He isn't a point guard and won't be someone we can rely on to drive and create. The ball should have been in Reeves' hands.

 

Agree on the last play being inept. It just does not seem that the coaching staff discourages Colin from dribbling in the open court. A man of his size should be low enough in the blocks to utilize a drop step and not a dribble.

 

Too bad we don’t have a Matt Bonner on the team who took 1,000 3 point shots on his own every day and still graduated with honors before a long NBA career. Jones is shooting it off the palm of his hand! That’s dumb basketball 101. We have T. Green on the bench and Humphrey calling the games. Can’t they help these guys get it going?

 

I think teams are able to take Colin out due to our lack of shooting.

If we had good shooters or drivers, he’d have less defensive attention, and thus more space and more 1-1 matchups.