Florida's Defense

Where?

 

Does someone have a technical reason for why our defense was not good? Is some of it athletic, or is it experience, or do some players not play hard enough?

While I feel the refs have been horrendous, it is statistically improbable that we just happen to get bad refs every game. I imagine the way we play defense contributes to the amount of fouls we get called for, but I do not understand basketball well enough to be sure.

 

Ticky tack fouls and getting Tyrese and Clayton in trouble turned us into ole defenses

 

Coaching. Just not coached to play defense other than man, mostly. Go back and look at the 2014 team. The help defense and rotations and recovery and close outs on shooters were insane. All five guys playing as one instead of five guys playing like five separate guys. That has to be coached. But it is just his second year and players don't stick together long enough to play like that. Next year you might see it with possibly 7 of our top 9 guys back and hopefully a couple key additions.

 

no rebuild required, just need 2 replacement parts and learn how to play D without fouling

 

If you score a lot of points you give up a lot, we need to get better at D but hopefully not at the expense of the offense, no returning to the days of slow it down 55-52 basketball.

 

Exactly. Tbe problem isn’t the number of points, it’s the efficiency. Colorado scored on every possession for nearly an hour

 

Hopefully it’s an emphasis in the off-season just like rebounding was this year.

Their coach at halftime was basically saying the same thing as us “somebody stop somebody please!”. Golden said “if we score 45 in the 2nd half I like our chances”. Well, we scored FIFTY FIVE! lol. CO with their high offensive efficiency was probably one of the worst early matchups we could have drawn. Proud of the way the guys fought back, and I think part of the defensive woes was being a man down up front (although that only pertains to some of the easy buckets their big guy got). When you play fast you are naturally going to give up a lot, but I’m sure if they analyze the game film there are probably about 10 ole’ plays where the perimeter player just got totally blown bye and help just didn’t get there. I know the new rules basically don’t let you take charges but yeesh. Gotta at least slow them down.

 

Credit Colorado for executing and hitting an abnormally high FT% and 3P%. Aside from that I think our defense was ok, but we didn’t turn it up to the required intensity to win until late. I think that Golden should develop a trapping defense that we switch to anytime we go down by 7-8 points. We possibly could have began the comeback about 5-6 minutes earlier. We just ran out of time. Gators had taken back the momentum late, but it was just too late.

 

A lot can be attributed to not having Micah in there......IMHO........

 

@ApexNC are you just going to hit funny on everything or provide a meaningful response?

 

Blocked see you later or actually I guess I won’t.

 

LOL

Our guards looked like the Washington Generals with their on-ball defense. At one point I think the announcers said Colorado scored on 18 straight possessions. There is nothing "ok" about that defense. It was horrible.

The guys played hard and fought back. I love this team, but all year the weakness was stopping the ball. They were great at many things, but just didn't do that well.

BTW, don't let random anonymous Internet posters get under your skin so much, bruh.

 

Larry Shyatt is retired in Wyoming. Let me start by saying that his health may not be great, or he may simply love retirement. However, he may see Todd Golden the same way he saw a young Billy D....a charismatic young coach who needs one key element improved to get to the elite level, and the part of the game for which Todd Golden needs help happens to be the part of the game that is Larry Shyatt's specialty.

And he also may remember the very positive experience he had the last time he was in Gainesville. Last, he may just yearn to coach again, but he may not want to do so with the pressure of being a head coach. I can see him in a role that is similar to the one Paul Pasqualone played for Napier, but basketball staffs are quite small, so I see a much more active role for Shyatt were he to return to Gainesville.

I say we offer him 3 million for one good year as a defensive consultant to provide tutelage for the staff and the team. It would be a great investment that woud pay off for years. I bet his wife would not mind one last nice, warm Gainesville winter, as opposed to the one she is now experiencing in Wyoming. In fact, now may be a great time to call him, since the frigid temperatures and ice are still prevalent and have been affecting Wyoming for many months.

I know it's a 98% pipe dream...but I'd still try to hit that 2% jackpot! Can't hurt. It's just a phone call.

 

1) Switch up the defense!!!!!!!

2) Our guards consistently get beat one-on-one against the elite level guards, which leads to all sorts of defensive breakdowns

 

Larry Shyatt actually crossed my mind too.

 

As great as our guards were offensively, they had significant defensive weaknesses. Clayton too often allowed fast guards to blow by him and ZP got bullied one on one by bigger and stronger guards.

I think part of it was Golden’s adjustment to our early struggles with 3 point defense. Our guards began to play tight defense which did prevent open threes for the most part, but made it much easier to drive to the hoop. Then it was either an easy basket or our young bigs fouled too much.

 

Our guards play good defense. Are we the 1989 Pistons? No, but they play good and fundamentally sound defense. They don’t foul or try to get away with stuff. They move their feet and get in good legal guarding position. What we lack sometimes is intensity and we blow assignments occasionally. Towards the end of the game, you saw a good aggressive trapping defense. I think going to it earlier would have been a good idea, but it’s also very energy consuming, so not easy to sustain for long periods of time.