This might be our worst season in 3 decades. Lofton, Richard, and Reeves haven’t played up to their billing. Bonham has surprised offensively, but isn’t consistent, and his size can be a liability. Fudge is an athletic project. Felder doesn’t look to score. CC has faced more double and triple teams than any Gator in recent memory due to it, but also lacks the muscle to compete on his own with physical teams. Jitoboh shouldn’t be on a P5 roster. It’s hard to blame Golden for the makeup of this team with so little time (though a more experienced coach may have known better), but I am worried our on-court play is going to effect his ability to recruit his way out of this mediocre program he inherited. We have to get away with having to truly rely on mid major transfers. What can he do to make the best out of this year?
I'm not really sure what we can do. But I disagree that Golden shouldn't take responsibility for the makeup of the team. He got every person he targeted in the portal except one and got Castleton to come back. He had said multiple times this is a tourney team. That's on him as the head coach.
He didn’t get the one that would have helped the most in Broome, which would have changed our identity a lot with 2 bigs on the court together..
That would have been a huge get … agreed. But he didn’t miss out bc “a lack of time”. Golden was here in time for the portal; had Broome on campus and felt really good about our chances. I’m not sure what made the final decision. I think a coach gets a pass on recruiting for the first cycle or two, bc those relationships just aren’t there. This is especially true for TG, coming over from the west coast. But the portal provides an immediate opportunity to rebuild. Heck- I think lsu had all 13 scholly players in the portal, at one point. So, the good news is - it is much easier and faster to recover from a coaching change these days. The bad news is - we seemingly didn’t do it. At least not so far.
Broome would have made a difference (AU probably did what it needed to money wise), but I don’t think it’s ever a good idea to have to rely so heavily on mid major and PF non starters to fill your roster, regardless if some do well in a given season with it.
White's last two teams had too many of them and this roster also has the same issues. Some of it can be blamed on the present status of the program. We're just not an attractive destination for impactful transfers. The program has lost a lot of credibility since Billy left us.
We are standing around too much against the double teams on Castleton. That can be fixed. The evaluation of Lofton was way off the mark. He is giving us nothing. [Edit: He is below average as a starting SEC point guard. “Nothing” was poor word choice during post-game frustration.] Unless we go on a run of consecutive victories starting Saturday, this team is going nowhere. If we are still limping along in a week and a half or so, Golden should build for the future by giving the bulk of the minutes to young guys in the backcourt instead of Lofton and Jones.
The biggest problem this team has is they can’t score inside. Going back to a true five out like the second half against Auburn and actually getting guys to commit to hard cuts and drives is where it starts. A&M overplayed us and dared us to take them off the dribble or beat them on back cuts, but the inside space wasn’t there to take advantage. coach is trying inside out with Colin to have the same effect, but again the spacing isn’t there because Colin isn’t strong enough to get the ball low enough on the block and so the 3 line is still defended. And we aren’t a great 3 point shooting team anyway. So a long way of saying, the offensive strategy isn’t gonna work against decent teams.
YES x 10,000,000! In the post game, Todd said we “didn’t execute our plan to attack the double team”. I would love to know what the plan was, but alas… the follow-up question was not asked.
I’ve mentioned it somewhere else, but the biggest problem I see with this system is that Colin isn’t strong enough to get the ball low enough to create the spacing needed for inside out to work well. Same way we lost the Auburn game, he got the ball way too far out to be a proper passing threat and wasn’t strong enough to back his man down.
In the AU game, he was facing up and asked to drive the ball from the perimeter. Awful idea. I think CC has strong footwork and post moves. I think he is very hard to handle on the low blocks… and recognition of that is why coaches are throwing doubles and triples at him. The issue is… we are not exploiting those defensive decisions. In the post game, Todd sad we didn’t execute our plan to attack the doubles… implying that we intended to put CC down there and work off those defensive decisions. What the plan was, and why we didn’t do it… who the hell knows?
Just a poor job of coaching so far this season I hate to say. This team has enough talent to win and be at least a decent team. The good news is I think he's going to be a really good recruiter and he needs a good freshman class and some guys that can shoot. Get a big man or two from the transfer portal next year. Play Kugel and Aberdeen more. Richards is on his way to being a really good player on both ends, so play for the future more. I highly advise that Coach brings in an experienced former big conference Head Coach next season, (preferably SEC). The experienced coaches are really taking advantage of his inexperience. I think this can help navigate the waters better for the first few years because if you don't win, you're not going to recruit at a high level. This year's results shouldn't hurt him too bad as he can chalk it up to only having a little time to put the team together, but next year he's on the clock to show something.
the op gave this thread a direct question for a title, so I will answer it - as far as where does UF go from here, one can only hope that it would be in the direction of hiring experienced D1 coaches with proven abilities in the prestige sports.
We could use a true power forward. Is there anyone left on the football team that could contribute 10 mpg as an enforcer?
I love that KJ is an impact player with K state but imagine what we could be with him in our starting 5. This year is a total loss with our current roster and coaching.
