Regular Season - did we over/underachieve?

I think we sort of played to what I thought. Won't say we underachieved because so much of scheduling over a conference slate is when you play teams.

If we played Ole Miss last week, we probably win by 20. But we played them when they were hot and rolling with confidence. We played Arkansas when they were playing poorly and not here at the end of the year.

Today's game was a disappointment, but I said 11-7 prior to SEC play and that's what we finished. Before the season started, I thought out first 10 conference games were as tough as can be (UK 2x, @ Tennessee, @ A&M, Auburn, Arkansas, Miss State). I thought 5-5 in that stretch would be a success.

 

I don’t know if we over or underachieved but I’m happy with this season. We had a lot of new players coming on and most of them played quite well this season. They carried us. Richard was inconsistent and I have no idea on Kugel. He just did not integrate well at all this season and is very careless on the court. I like the kid though. If I had to guess, he tried too hard to be the de facto star and that didn’t work out. If we do well in the SEC tourney and win 2- 3 games in NCAA, I’d be happy. I just hope they come out each remaining game like we did in the Alabama game.

 

Hmmmm,

I would say that I think we're better than our record indicates in the sense that I think this team is built very well for a postseason run (better than a lot of Gator teams with better records). But, I'm not really surprised - or even disappointed - by our record. It's tough to win on the road in the SEC and I figured we'd struggle to have a winning record on the road. I really don't care what the other SEC teams did.

That said (and I mentioned this in the game thread), I hope we do a good job (maybe a better job?) of exploiting our advantages in the postseason. With our strong backcourt and frontcourt, we'll have some kind opf advantage over most teams. Today, I thought the obvious advantage was Samuel with the way he was playing and apparently no one on Vandy could contain him. But, we didn't force feed him like I was hoping we'd try to do.

 

Probably about right in the end. Definitely had a stretch where we were underachieving and the tourney outlook was pessimistic, the hot streak corrected that. I think we had the talent to do better if things clicked earlier AND we dialed in defensively, but it’s also not like we are clearly superior to any of the SEC teams ahead of us. The defensive struggles are what they are. Will be an interesting dynamic in the NCAA tourney.

This loss was ugly, but probably doesn’t mean anything if they at least win a game or two in SECT. It does suck to avoid the bad loss all year, and then right at the end it gets you. But with our SECT seed locked in it became the classic trap game before the postseason.

 

No way did anybody anticipate that Pullin would be this good. We were justifiably excited about Samuel, but he's surpassed the excitement, too imo. But Brent's question was about the team, so . . . .

I predicted 10-8 in the SEC, 11-7 is just a game better. I thought the non-conf was average and wish we woulda won one of VA, Baylor, Wake. We saw great signs mid/late season with good guard scoring, excellent pg play & good post play. It was great watching a team that dominated the boards, though that seemingly fell off late in the season.

Overall, I'm pleasantly surprised with the regular season. Now we get to play in the SEC / ncaas. Those outcomes will factor in to most folks' assessment. My thought, though, is that the rest is gravy. Getting wins will probably depend upon the Gator boyz getting their rebounding mojo back.

 

No doubt! Trap game, they had road demolition on campus warning us, Stackhouse said he found our weakness another warning, our heads were inflated. Total lackadaisical effort, terrible in that the first half we gave part of a ten point lead back right before half. I knew we were in trouble because even the refs were trying their best to even it out. You can’t just suit up and not play with total effort. A lot of Gator fans made the trip which makes me upset that they didn’t get to see a good team destroy a bottom feeder!

 

So what was the weakness Stackhouse found and exploited. I thought our ball handling was atrocious, and cost us the game, but actually I'd pin this loss on two factors lack of rebounding hustle and sloppy ball handling.

In terms over over/underachieving I am pretty sure I predicted 10-8 so we did better than I thought before the SEC season started, but based on how we turned it around after a dreadful start I thought we might get to 13 wins and we didn't. So for me it's a little of both and I hope you are right about us overachieving in the NCAAs

 

Good question. So many new players took awhile to mesh. But for your suppose best player have a bad year we over achieved.
But no way 5 teams in SEC are better so we under achieved
Dance will answer this question

 

I try to keep it simple. We got two great guards in the portal (a must) and three bigs. Micah was long but thin and so would he hold up against the SEC competition? Samuel was a nice piece but probably limited offensively. Jarvis was THE NICE piece. Nice couple of freshmen. Hopefully they could help give the other bigs some rest for a while and learn what is major college basketball. And we had some nice returning players in Kugel and Richard. Richard looked like a nice piece with an additional year of experience. Kugel was going to take a BIG step up and be the lead guitar on the new band.

On further review, besides the two guards and the occasional great game by Richard, I would say we missed a bit with the up and down play from Kugel and Richard. No one knew what Aberdeen would do in his sophomore season, just that plenty of players blossom after their freshman season. Nope.

Now to the bigs. Micah seems about what he should have been expected to be. Jarvis is not on the team. Samuel, besides Clayton and Pullin, is THE signing. No one thought his game was going to be THAT good. Shimmy never made the field. Those freshmen who need to not stink up the court in those limited minutes turned out to be quite better than what anyone could expect. We are NOT Kentucky.

In light of the overall plusses and minuses, I say the less-good guard/wing play is WAY less than what we should have expected from the front court, given two pieces being removed.

And so, we over-achieved. Just that a couple of games were frustrating.

 

Won at Rupp, beat Auburn and Bama both by double figures at home. Should of had 2-3 more wins if officials didn't take over the games. If we were a great team we probably win 3 more games and finish 2nd or 3rd in the conference. What were we predicted to finish preseason? I doubt it was any better than 6th, but i could be wrong there. If you told be 21-10 and double digit conference wins before the season, I would have signed up on the spot.

I'm firmly in the overachieve camp. A bad loss yesterday doesn't change the season as a whole, disappointing sure, but there are still chapters to be written.

Expectations can change as the season goes and I understand that as well. If they go 0-1 in the SEC tourney and then 0-1 in dance I will be disappointed at the finish and probably overall feel let down. However, 1-1 in the SEC and 1-1 in the dance would have me still on board with this being a successful season and I don't remember many people preseason thinking we were a tournament team. Much less a team that didn't have to sweat selection Sunday. Enjoy the ride, it's been awhile since we were even being mentioned by people as a sleeper final 4 pick or just a tough out in general.

 

I also enjoyed the season. The inconsistency was frustrating, but it was a great ride

 

Biggest problem with this team is defense it seems to be an afterthought for TG. I feel like he thinks he can outscore everyone to win games. We have great size and athleticism so you would think we could be a dominant defensive team, but we are not. We have great depth, but we never press, and we never change the look of our defense. Teams built to win championships have great defenses so I'm not counting on a long run in the tourney. One of the most talented and deep teams we have had in a while so I would say underachieved.

 

overachieved based on where I thought we would end up, but underachieved based on how good we could have been

 

Florida has achieved in that the Gators made it back to the NCAA Tournement,
won over 20 games total; however,
Florida has been stuck with 9-9 to 11-7 SEC records since the 2017-18 season (7-seasons):
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2024: UF (21-10, 11-7, 6th in SEC)
2023: UF (16-17, 9-9, 8th in SEC)
2022: UF (20-14, 9-9, 5-way tie for 5th in SEC)
2021: UF (15-10, 9-7, 5th in SEC)
2020: UF (19-12, 11-7, 2-way tie for 4th in SEC)
2019: UF (20-16, 9-9, 8th in SEC)
2018: UF (21-13, 11-7, 3rd in SEC)
2017: UF (27-9, 14-4, 2nd in SEC)
=====================================

The Vanderbilt loss has prevented UF from having a 12-6 SEC record and Florida (Net: 35) may have dropped from becoming a 6/7 seed to maybe an 8 or 9 seed.


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The close losses (1point to 6 point losses) this season prevented this team from becoming a very special team:

at Vandy: 78-79 (1 point loss)
at S.Car: 76-82 (6 point loss)
at Alabama: 93-98 (5 point loss)

at Georgia: 88-82 (6 point win)
LSU: 82-80 (2 point win)

at TexasAM: 66-67 (-1 point loss)
at Kentucky: 94-91 (3 point win)
Georgia: 102-98 (4 point win)

Michigan: 106-101 (5 point win)
East Carolina: 70-65 (5 point win)
Baylor: 91-95 (4-point loss)
Virginia: 70-73 (3 point loss)

Florida's record in games decided by 1-6 points have been 6-6!
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Florida has neither over-achieved nor under-achieved!

 

We don't have anyone that can Guard the 6'7-6'9 type perimeter players. That's where we miss Jarvis. Wish we played better defense as well.

 

Recency bias! If we had won at Vandy no one would even ask this question. That doesn't mean that this team doesn't have flaws.

I expected a team that would take a while to find their roles together. FAR more individual players played better than expected than those who didn't meet expectations. Record and results are an improvement. Happy with the players and coaches, though I wish TG would hire a Larry Shyatt type.

 

Come on people. This team overachieved. If the question was asked before Saturday I think some of these replies would be a lot different. The loss hurts but it's been a fantastic season.

 

Okay.