The 23-24 MBB Team Will go as far as ________ Takes It

Both Cheese and Canyon Barry coming off the bench. My 7-year old granddaughter would have had them in the starting lineup.

 

Both of those still sting.

 

I get wanting Chiozza over Kasey Hill as a starting point guard that year as Cheeze had better stats, but Cheeze off the bench could spell both K Alan and K Hill at either the 1 or the 2. KaVaughn could never play the 1 and Kasey could never play the 2. It just made sense to slot Chiozza in where he could do the most good off the bench.

 

Cheese was one of the best point guards in the country in his junior year. He also has been one of the 2 most successful NBA point guards ever produced by the Gators along with Jason Williams. White played him about 20 minutes per game that season. IMO, that is nuts.

 

Andrew Nebhard? Tre Mann?

Nick C would be up there if he didn't want to be a national hero in Greece.

 

And you never said anything about my point that Chiozza was the one guy that could come off the bench to spell either Hill or Alan. Neither Hill nor Alan could do that.

 

Hill and Allen played 29 mpg each that year and Cheese played 22 mpg. That makes no sense even if Cheese was being used to spell them. Barry and Hester also were able to play the guard spots. For a good part of that season, Hill was the PG at crunch time. That changed in the latter part of the season. On top of that, Hester was great in his limited playing time, but White couldn’t find him playing time.

 

that is some memory you have there

 

South Carolina fouled on literally every play that game. They relied on their tried and true "refs can't call everything a foul" strategy and worked it to perfection.

 

[QU
Worst "screw up" was losing to South Carolina after beating Wisconsin in an epic game with the Cheeze trey at the buzzer.[/QUOTE]
OTE="GatorLurker, post: 15057619, member: 5347"]

I figured we would lose against SC after winning such a thrilling overtime game--the late game, by the way--on a last-second buzzer-beater. I couldn't get to sleep after that game, and our players said pretty much the same thing. We had no gas left in the emotion tank and not much left in the legs after when we took the floor against SC.
The sad thing is, the Wiscy game shouldn't have come down to that. IIRC, we built a double-digit lead with seven or eight minutes left in regulation and were in control, and then Mike pulled out his signature stratagem and let all the air out of the tires. We started throwing prayers at the basket at the end of each shot clock, and Wiscy climbed back into it. Dammit, Mike. If we'd won comfortably in regulation as we should have, we'd have gone out and whipped SC and added another Final Four banner to the O-Dome.

 

i don’t think Cheese coming off the bench was much of a factor versus South Carolina. He played 25 minutes, and went 3-10 from the field.
Hill had a solid game, playing
31 minutes… going 4-7 and 5 assists. As I recall, that game was lost well into the second half.
I thought White’s biggest gaffe was not demonstratively drawing attention to a trench of some egregious officiating.

 

I am not going to dissect one game. Playing Barry and Chiozza about 20 mpg each that year and bringing them off the bench was nuts as were many of White’s other decisions over his 7 years at UF.

 

My bad, I thought you were lamenting that decision in that particular loss.

Hill had his warts for sure, but that year… his assist:turnover was 2.7:1.

 

For several games that season, I charted and posted on here the number of quality passes made by Chiozza and Hill. If I recall correctly, Chiozza made about 3 times as many quality passes as Hill did per 40 minutes. Assist to turnover ratio can be misleading. Kasey played the game at 1 speed and usually either passed or shot from outside or drove to the hoop and tried to make a play. That’s why I pointed out when he was in high school that he had the talent to be a great player, but he had to make a lot of adjustments. He didn’t make the adjustments. Chiozza always played the game at multiple speeds and could make plays at all spots on the floor. He was great at getting into the paint, pulling up
and finding teammates. That’s also what Glover does in addition to Glover’s ability to score from the mid-range.

 

i guess I’d question as to how Cheese could have exponentially higher number of quality passes, yet a lower assist:turnover.
Regardless, Cheese is one of my all time favorites… so I won’t offer much pushback on him playing more.

But tell me more about this Glover character!

 

When you dive into the paint or to around the free throw line, start to draw a defender and kick out to someone, it starts ball movement that can lead to a good scoring opportunity. Sometimes it only takes one pass, sometimes it takes 5 passes. Sometimes the team scores. Sometimes it doesn’t. If you watch Nembhard or Cheese, they are making quality passes that advance the scoring opportunities almost every time they come down court. Glover does it a lot too although he is more scoring oriented. Kasey would either pass the ball around the perimeter or drive to the basket and try to make a play while airborne. He wasn’t a big initiator of offense for other players. You can pass the hall around the perimeter and get a few assists without turnovers if the recipient of the pass makes a jump shot, but that’s not really running an offense.

 

And he was outstanding defensively. All league defensively that season. Second team All-SEC. The problem was that you really couldn't play those two together as much since neither was a good three point shooter in 2016-17, and when they did play together you took your best high-volume shooter (Allen) off the floor. You could get away with it for maybe 8-12 minutes a game with Leon and Robinson at the forward spots since they created some driving lanes, but it could cause real spacing problems otherwise.

 

Umm... Nick couldn't guard anyone in the NBA.

 

He was pretty bad at Florida, but I think he turned into a fairly decent defender in the league: Nick Calathes Has Become Memphis Grizzlies’ Top Defender?

Donovan would always say that what Calathes needed to do to be a great defender was use his exceptional vision and anticipation on offense at the other end of the court. Sounds like he was eventually able to do that to a degree.