Regular Season - did we over/underachieve?

Not in total disagreement with your take fwiw.

 

I think we definitely over-achieved. I had HOPED we go 10-8 in league play, and that was IF a few things went our way…..which they did.

I thought TN, Bama, Auburn & KY would be the top four teams in some order. I thought IF things fell our way, landing somewhere in the 5-7 slot would be a good year.

After the loss of Jarvis, I was re-thinking that 10-8 record & praying that Haugh & Condon could just be good enough to give us 10-15 minutes and not be a liability. Look how much better they became than anyone could have expected. Micah actually played about how I expected.

Yep….it’s a definite over achievement from my chair, based on the beginning of the season expectations.

Good question, thanks for asking.

 

Lots of ways to look at this. For me:

- We found our ceiling as team, which means we got much better and have nearly reached out potential. Our team has enough gaps that the floor is not pretty, but my point is: We got better throughout the season and we're a tough out this tourney

- The point above cannot happen without growth from the coaching staff, period. So this is a very good sign.

- Our brand is back to being relevant, which should help recruiting.

- We learned that coach nailed it with the transfers and freshmen..and integrated them nicely into a system....awesome signs!

No one on this board knew our W/L potential preseason, so I think being top 25 with some awesome marque wins = we definitely overachieved, considering the reality of where we were preseason with all the unknowns.

 

Lost several games in the last minute or two. Mishandled the ball in the last few minutes (vandy, virginia,...and more) Had the game won yesterday but for a really dumb pass by Clayton. Players thought they'd roll into and over vandy and played down to their opponent. We can beat almost anyone and can lose to anyone too. WAKE UP GATORS!

 

Above is the screenshot of what I posted in the post:
Define your idea of success for this season

check Fight hard and be competitive in most all games
check Win most home games and steal a few road games in SEC
check Not get swept by uk
tbd Win a game or two in the SECT
tbd Get out of the first weekend in NCAAT

I love that we were competitive in all the games minus Ole Miss and Tennessee. At that point in the season (12-26-23) I'd have to say that we overachieved, but knowing how good this team is now, I'd say we slightly underachieved knowing the best is yet to come.

 

Team record - Slightly over-achieved. Without the Vandy loss, I'd say solidly, but not spectacularly, over-achieved.
Team growth - Overachieved. The team came together during the year & played better as the season progressed in most metrics, even FT & defense improved a little by the end of the season.
Player growth - Overachieved. Except for Kugel, I think every player got better as the year progressed.
Enjoyment factor - Overachieved. This was a fun team to watch!

 

- Media picked us to finish 8th. We finished 6th.

- 12-1 record at home with a respectable home loss. (No embarrassing Texas Southern or Georgia)

Firmly in the tournament and not on the bubble.

I’m going overachieve. We have a young coach who has us in a good place. I think the future is bright.

 

Gators finished 2 spots ahead of preseason media predictions so there’s that. Golden improved from year one to year two, so that’s good too. Beat Kentucky in Rupp so that was awesome as well. Let’s wait and see how they do in the conference tournament and the big dance. This team can play with anyone when they play motivated but that seems to be the issue. They don’t always play as if their heart is in a lot of the road games. Hopefully they will ball out in the dance and whether they win or lose, leave it all on the floor by giving 110%.
My biggest concern with Golden is his refusal to play anything other than man to man defense. In my opinion this makes it easier for teams to prepare for you if you only play man to man. He’s a young coach and hopefully he will consider changing up the defense once in a while in the future. He’s passionate about winning so this gives me hope that he will grow as a coach in all aspects of the job.

 

I'd say over achieved right now, though three losses to just plain bad teams like A&M, Miss and Vandy is concerning so is a terrible record on the road.

If we are 1 and 2 and out in the coming tournaments I'll switch to underachieved.

 

Currently - overachieved. Finally getting a win over and especially at UK is huge. Beating Pearl and then Bama was big. More overall wins and SEC wins than last year. Firmly in the NCAAT. Finished higher than we were predicted in media days.

Still an inconsistent team, but it has gotten a little better. The Vandy loss hurt, but still have a lot to look forward to in the tourneys. A decent run in the SECT to setup a better NCAA seed could help put the VU loss behind and hope set up for a good NCAAT run.

 

We have arguably the best guard combo in the conference along with Kugel and Richard at the 3 spot, and 4 guys who are really big and have good skills who can rotate at the 4 and 5 spots. I feel like this team should have been much better and should have been a contender for 1st place in the conference.

Golden is very young and if he can keep bringing in talent like this, he will break through. I didn’t think Donovan was a great coach either early on. More of a recruiter. But he developed into a pretty good coach while his recruiting leveled off.

 

Thought they'd be a bubble team and they are a solid tournament team, so overachievement.

 

If Kugel played to expectations I think we probably contend for the #1 spot. But he and Richard were up and down this year in SEC play.

 

Pretty much how I feel. Have to say in hindsight I feel we underachieved because we showed we could play with anyone. They were in position to win almost every game except oke miss and Tennessee many times blowing double digit leads in the process. A victim of their own potential I guess.

With that said, it's been a fun season and it isn't over yet. I'm not unhappy with it but the team has so much more potential if they would just close out the last ten minutes of a game.

 

Underachieved. We blew leads in 5 of our 7 conference losses (Kentucky, Texas A&M, Alabama, South Carolina and Vanderbilt). I had pretty high expectations for this squad based on the pieces Golden brought in. The fact we were able to build pretty solid leads on those squads shows the potential of the team, however not being able to finish those games was very disappointing. Being 3-7 on the road is disappointing as well. Kentucky (great win) was our only "impressive" road victory all season.

 

Solid season that ended up about where I thought it would. Defense has been a problem all season and offensively, UF turns the ball over way too much. All I can say is thank goodness Zion Pullin transferred in late because if we would have had to rely on Clayton and Aberdeen to man the point this year, things would not have turned out nearly as well. Pullin, Samuel and Condon were better than I expected, as was Clayton from an offensive standpoint. The biggest disappointment was obviously Kugel, who had a brutal season and the lack of improvement in Aberdeen’s game was a negative also.

All in all, if I was grading UF’s regular season, I would give it a solid B. I just wanted UF back in the NCAA Tournament and kudos to the team for getting that done.

 

Not sure I understand the premise of the question. How can anyone possibly say? This was pretty much a totally new team with no way to know just how they would meld. I guess we're asking this in hindsight?

 

Dang, don't pressure the guy.
I'm unsure why you felt the need to start a whole new thread when we already had one pertaining to this subject.