Golden Post Game Comments: vandy

Shooting, recruiting-wise, was not really tackled this past off-season. He signed a potentially nice big in Fudge, along with what is a damn good talent in Kugel. Jones was a pretty good shooter at PSU and the gamble was he last year was a one-off. Reeves looked very good late last season. Expected to have a nice sophomore jump.

All of this could have worked (except that Fudge is still a work in progress)...IF Lofton turned out to be the missing piece to running the offense. It is obvious that he is not. Having Jones as PG1b (ir maybe even PG1a) has been our best but that isn't nearly good enough. And having Felder go MIA (this was from the beginning) means we had to play small ball.

 

The only positive from the Vandy game is some how we still scored 80 points after going 2-20 from 3.
No chance at making the dance now with that loss in my opinion (assuming we lose at least 2 more games now as well).

 

The problem with Florida basketball is that we think transfers are quick fixes. Being 13-12 (6-7) with three straight conference losses (including a loss at home to a cellar-dweller program that had lost its last 8 conference games) is not a quick fix for anything. Last year at the 25-game mark we were 15-10 (7-6) under a coach who was clearly in over his head. In summary, there have been ZERO improvements in the program under the new coach ZERO.

If you look at the conference record, we are actually doing worse. This might not be a reflection on Richard as much as it is on our Athletic Director, but unless we start recruiting more Reeves, Kugels, and Aberdeens, and learn how to keep the Castletons in the state for the good guys, all we are going to do is tread water in the transfer portal.

I would rather reward a player who made a commitment from day ONE to play for us, who came out of HS higher ranked than Richard, and now is relegated to playing behind him. Not only does this steer prize recruits away from the program, but I can only imagine what it has done to a young and impressionable Reeves who prepared his heart out to star for our program, only to be benched by someone who did not even give us a second thought when he inked his name for Belmont of all schools. I totally understand the funk that Reeves is in. He contemplated leaving the program after last season, was persuaded to stay, only to end up riding the bench when his shot went cold - not that benching him improved our winning percentage from last year because it hasn't. We are at a lower winning percentage this year than last when he started for us.

The differential in their stats which favor Richard has not translated to wins. We will never know how Reeves would have developed had we left him in as a starter for the entire season. There is something about knowing that you are going to be called upon and that you are going to have to figure out how to turn things around that motivates champions, which getting a vote of NO CONFIDENCE at 20 years old, from a first-year coach who himself has won absolutely nothing in his career won't accomplish.

 

You point out the dichotomy between success (which precipitously fell off under White) and failure. How can a team that loses games like we have claim a link to the program that was so vibrant only 7-10 years earlier? And any serious runs White made were with Donovan recruits not his own or transfer portal fill-ins.

 

You are not looking at the large picture. You are looking at the person who committed to Florida as a transfer and probably was all but assured (since he was technically a Golden "recruit") that he would be given every opportunity to start. So Reeves gets into a bad patch (something the elite recruits [which he was and Richard wasn't] are observing which is why Golden has absolutely no one coming next year who is noteworthy out of HS), and Golden benches the loyal Gator for someone who committed to Belmont. How would that motivate you to play better? You were almost out the door in the off-season, you were convinced to give it another run with an all-conference Center who has played his way into the NBA draft, and now you are languishing on the bench because the minute you miss a couple of shots you start focusing on the coach pulling you and not your game.

I would agree with you all wholeheartedly if we had a better record than we had with Reeves starting last year, but we don't. Richard has not made a difference in our overall performance comparatively speaking. All he has done is hastened Reeves and perhaps others out of the door at the end of this season, with only the hopes and option of other players who did not choose Florida as their first choice coming to play for the program. We are in a vicious cycle where HS students are seeing us forfeit the development of young talent for presumed quick fixes that turn out in the long run to be flat tires. Next year we will bring in more transfers, and the minute Kugel or Fudge go cold for a stretch (as they have seen what has happened to Reeves) they will be benched if they even come back. That is not the way you build a program. I am sorry. Reward the players who elected to go Orange and Blue from day one, and if they don't pan out, you get better talent out of HS or you get a better recruiter like 90% of the SEC seems to be able to do.

Napier has the formula. You bring in a marquee QB and the dominos will fall in place. He has no blue chip after Castleton to build his program around. Kugel and Fudge are showcasing their talents, but they have not made enough of an impression to get high 4-star and 5-star talent interested in playing for our school (neither one will be first or second-team all-conference). His hope and your hope that some 5-star phenom is going to wake up one morning and want to transfer to Florida are delusional.

 

Thanks for your response. I don't think any of this refutes the fact that Richard has been better per/40 than Reeves. I also find little here that I agree with, esp. when you cite misinformation in attempt to support some point(s), which lean heavily negative. For starters, the Gators are not 6-7 in the SEC. Your comment about a cell-dweller having dropped its last eight is confounding. I don't even know what team you are referring to. Not Vandy, as they are not anywhere near the SEC cellar, nor have they dropped eight games. There are too many additional false and woeful claims to address, but again I thank you for your response.

 

Richard has been given more opportunities than Reeves. So it stands to reason that he is going to have better numbers over 40 minutes. He does not play with the concern that one missed shot is going to get him yanked out of the game. He was recruited by Golden. Reeves wasn't. It stands to reason that Golden is going to shove his recruits down our throat. Reeves is head and shoulders a better player than Richard period. If you can't see that then you are focused on technical concerns rather than substantive ones.

The Commodores had an 8-9 game losing streak against us not in the SEC overall. I mischaracterized the stat there. I am sorry your brain blew a gasket over the minor discrepancy. Anyone halfway following Florida basketball would have known what I was referring to. As for the Gator's record. I was off by one game!!!!!! WOW! I can only imagine how troubling trying to digest that major mistake was for you. They are 7-6 now with virtually no chance of winning the SEC again, no recruits of any significance coming in, and only the hope of a grab bag of transfers which as we have seen for the last 5-6 years has translated into marginal results. They are one loss away for praying for an NIT invitation which has become the standard here at Florida. Perhaps you are okay with this. I was a Florida fan pre-Donovan where we had to tolerate this substandard production year in and year out. We have reverted to that persona under White, and right now, quite frankly, I see no change under the horizon with Golden. In many respects, the team is less competitive under Golden than it was under White which is seriously troubling given the outcomes we had with White.

As far as the Commodores being cellar-dwellers, even under Mike White, we managed a 9-game winning streak against them. Furthermore, in 22 they were 7-11 (11th place out of 14), in 21 they were 3-13 (last place), in 20 they were 3-14 (last place), in 19 they were 0-18 (last place). This year they are a game away from being in the bottom 25% of the league again (aided largely by the win over us in Gainesville). If you don't see that as a cellar-dwelling program, then you are part of the reason why Florida has dipped into such acute mediocrity. You don't even appreciate the realistic state of affairs. So you go ahead and continue to promote the transfer model for building a solid program at Florida. And I will support those Gators who want to be Gators from day one.