MBB OGT: #5 FLORIDA at South Carolina -- January 22, 2025 -- 7 PM [SECN]

I live and Columbia and had family up for the game. I had sideline seats behind the Florida bench. I'm in the bright Orange Rowdy Reptiles shirt (from college back in the day) and the hat. What a game. I'll take a road win in the SEC every night. Condo had an off game. He was missing easy shots and the entire crowd got on him. With that said, he still played his ass off.

I had a prime view of the beautiful play by Richard. His whole family was there. What a memory for him.

Also. This is a crazy stat!

Beautiful win. Go Gators!

 

Our bigs are good but strong athletic bigs on other teams tend to give us issues especially if we are unable to double. Time and time again they were able to back our guys close to the basket thus getting an easier shot. Perhaps our guys need more girth and strength.

 

They are all pretty young and raw. Alexis is the only junior, and he is actually the youngest of the group. They play hard and they are physical, but the difference between a 20 yo and a 22 yo physically can be massive at this stage, especially with all the experienced guys moving around in the portal these days.

 

Down 13 w about 8min to play. That's when the run started.

 

This is where I miss Tyrese Samuel's muscle. That guy was never back downed. Lol

 

Man did I look foolish in front of my son

We were just getting clobbered in half court v half court game, not rebounding the few misses, unable to get out and run, continuing to pick up our dribbles when hedged, on and on. It truly seemed hopeless. But then boys never quit.

I wish we'd have tried some double teams on Murrayy Boyles, but the few times we tried it was half hearted and he passed out well. I also really hope we stop picking up our dribbles 28' away. DA takes a lot of flak here for pounding the ball, but he's the only dude on the squad not pivoting 6 times with a defender dropped on him a mile from the basket.

Those were some of my frustrations.

The press, which we saw for like one play a couple a games ago, was a great call! Murray Boyles was quieted to close out the game. Despite the poor shooting a d tough bounces, I never saw a head hang. Just kept fighting.

Ugly as hell, butive this team

 

I don't get picking up the ball so much either. The guards have been doing it for multiple games in a row.

 

Some of the picking up the dribble he coming of the DHO/Zoom action, at least from the bigs. With the guards, it’s usually that they want to hit the screener/cutter going to the basket in our continuity stuff, but the passes get gapped. Those things are gonna happen. Starting the defense so far out has been a real problem due to the aggressive blitzing/hard hedging. Better get used to it, though, because that’s the book on us now.

 

What genius said this before the game?

Aren't we all glad WR played?

 

Yes. Yes they are.

 

100%. Totally the way to play us. But it's not like our guards are occasionally finding the passing lane taken, it's a huge percentage of those rub plays.

Teams have adjusted to our half court offense well. Time for us to adjust back. I think our half court offense is this teams biggest weakness.

 

Still 5th offensively in KenPom and Miya, 7th in Torvik. I’m not panicking. Offensive rebounding + transition/early offense makes up for a lot, as does the ability of Clayton and Martin to create their own looks.

 

Major kudos to Richard.
Gators literally stole this one with so many SC turnovers resulting in fast break points. Gators 17-2.

Just caught the end of the Aggies/ole Miss game and the Aggies stole that one in the last seconds as ole Miss missed a free throw and Aggies hit a 3 for a 1 pt win.

 

Yes, but we run into a team that through a combination of making shots and/or rebounding - severely limit our ability to run and you get games like tonight.

Would hate to get bounced from the tourney by a rock fighter that gets hot.

I'm not expecting us to install some new unstoppable sets, but we have tonchange something so we don't have to rely more and more on transition as our HC O gets more and more destroyed.

 

Condo didn't have a great game, but he still works hard and helps the team win. On Richard's game-winner, Condo made a textbook screen of Murray-Boyle that allowed Will to get all the way to the hoop.

 

I think when teams force us to play half court, we need to press and speed the game up, turn it into a track meet, where we excel. Press as much as possible and use our bench to keep fresh legs on the court. I’ve got a call into Todd to get him up to speed on my idea.

 

What a win. Thought this game was a L for sure. Great comeback.

 

Our frontcourt got manhandled tonight. They turned up the defense the last 10 minutes or so and steals and easy lasyups got us back in the game. Will Richard was the only guy who played his heart out the entire game. This year in the SEC, you've got to bring it every night or you can get beat. We were very fortunate to pull this game out becauae they played with more intesnsity than us until the final stretch. But a win is a win, especially on the road. Go Gators!!

 

I hear ya, but the reality is that probably happens regardless. We are likely a 1-3 seed, which means odds are good that we get bounced the second weekend, and by a team that is lower seeded. We don’t have a generational talent like Flagg, or the depth, length, and athleticism of Bama or Auburn, an elite game coach like Sampson or Hurley. We don’t have a single top-100 recruit on the team, IIRC (though they are coming!).

We sort of are who we are: a team that games the system offensively with tempo, shot volume, and offensive rebounds, and runs a switch heavy defense that contests everything. It’s all based on numbers, and the team has specifically been engineered to that end (volume shooters like Martin and Clayton, with lots of length and depth up front).

19 games in, I just don’t see that changing much. So far, it has produced great results: 17-2, only 5 games decided by single digits and 2 losses by a combined 7 points, with a top 10 offense and top 20 defense across the board. We always knew teams would figure out how to slow us down in the half court, but we are still banking on tempo, shot volume, and offensive rebounding to carry us when teams do take us out of our continuity stuff, or some of the other off ball actions for Clayton and Martin.

I’m not throwing in the towel or saying we can’t get to the third weekend, but we’ve seen a lot of really good teams bow out early over the years (especially those 2001-2005 squads), and we have a pretty young, inexperienced staff in terms of making major adjustments. The wild card for me is if Clayton and/or Martin get on a heater in the postseason. But the odds of us being the last team standing (or one of the last 4) were never really great. What Golden has done to get us to this point in short order is really impressive. He just needs to keep stacking talent like Ingram, Lloyd, hopefully Bryant and Constanza, in addition to the solid 3-4 year players he develops and the great evals he makes on portal takes and international kids who fit our profile.

For now, though, I’m just enjoying us winning and competing at a high level again. It’s been a while.

 

Excellent analysis and observations. I have no idea how the season will play out. The SEC is simply more talented and deeper than it's ever been, yet this ius the best Gator team in a long, long time. The NCAA tournament all comes down to match-ups and winning one game you shouldn't win. We were a better team last year than the one that got beat in the 1st round, but Colorado was a tough match-up for us. This Gator team is talented and deep and for the most part they play hard, although not always well or smart. But with the leadership of Martin & Clayton, I honestly think this is a Final 4-caliber team. But unless you have overwhelming talent like our back-to-back national title teams did, nothing is guaranteed. I'm thoroughly enjoying watching these guys play, though, and appreciating a coach who is all in.