Switch Buchanan and Handlogten and the Gators win. No one on our team was able to contain him, so, we fouled him.
Maybe. Buch scored four more pts, but some of the other stats make a diff on the scoreboard too. Player.........pts.....rbd.....asst.....stl.....blk Buchanan.....18......7.........1.........0........0 Handlogten...14......14.......2.........1........2 Turnovers were one each. Sorry to quibble, but I believe Handlogtens 26min were more productive than Buchanan's 27min.
Agree. Gators outrebounded Virginia 47-30 and we had 19 second chance points to their 11. We had 38 points in the paint to their 30. The difference in the game was not the big men battle, IMO. We had 16 turnovers to their 6 and they had 15 steals to their 4. They were 7-18 shooting 3's, we were 7-25. I'll take Handlogten over Buchanan any day of the week. Plus he said that Buchanan outplayed our big guys, plural. He was key for them , primarily from the free throw line, but he didn't even outplay Handlogten, let alone our big guys as a group. We lost the game by not taking care of the ball.
We had 21 offensive rebounds and lost the game. Plenty of blame to go around for the loss but our bigs did show up big on the offensive glass.
Yes like they have all season so far, a huge improvement from last year. As long as we keep turnovers down we should be a + on extra possessions
I made the mistake of watching the game. It can really distort one’s perception. We could not control Buchanan down the last stretch of the game. He took 12 foul shots in the final 8 minutes. Handlogten played a fine game, but he fouled out with 3 minutes to go while Buchanan continued to kick our butts.
I watched the game, too, and disagree with your conclusions. Here are some facts: In the last 10 minutes of the game, Buchanan made 9 free throws and missed 5. He had 1 turnover, 2 rebounds, 1 made field goal and committed 1 foul. That's not exactly dominating down the stretch. On the other hand, during the last 10 minutes of the game, the Gators missed 4 free throws, missed 3 three-point shots, missed 5 layups and committed 3 turnovers, 2 of them in the last 15 seconds, when we had a chance to tie or take the lead.
This probably isn’t worth arguing about because my point is that we lost to a Virginia team that doesn’t look like it’s very good, and a kid who has done practically nothing against other teams arguably kicked out butts down the stretch of the game. Nevertheless, in the last 8 minutes of the game, Buchanan made 9 free throws, while our big men in the aggregate scored 4 points. Our win over FSU was encouraging. Let’s hope that we can carry that over against Pitt.
FSU winning today vs ranked Colorado could help. Hard to know which teams are really good at this point, but this should help with FSU being a good out of conference win for the Gators.
I'm curious about your apparent pessimism, though. Are you a bit jaded from past years? How do you compare this recruiting/transfer class to the past two seasons? I was excited about Jones/Duruji/McKissic/Reeves/Felder in 2021. That team disappointed in that they lost the first SECt game and failed to make the tourney. I was excited about Richard/Kugel/Lofton/Fudge last season but Castleton got injured and they flamed out, failing to make the tourney. It was a transition year, too. This year feels different. Clayton and Pullin will not be bullied by anyone. They are physical and skilled. We were thin down low in the previous years and that isn't true this year. Kugel and Richard are year two in the program. Do you feel these guys have a good chance to take the next step? I appreciate your perspective.
I am not going to say that I am pessimistic, but I am not going to be over optimistic based on wins over a few crappy teams. I am pretty sure that I was enthusiastic about Haugh before anyone else on these boards. I got there by watching several of his high school games on YouTube. I knew practically nothing about Condon before he showed up in Gainesville. I like the transfers and took the position early on that Pullin should be our starting point guard and Clayton should play the 2. On the 4 team thread that I started, I said that the Gators could be a top-5 SEC team if 2 out of Condon, Haugh and Shimmy play well this year. I am high on both Shimmy and Aberdeen. I thought that we played poorly so far this season until the FSU game, in which we played a great first half. I didn’t like the second half when we seemed to stop running the offense through Pullin. Right now, I would put us at 8th in the conference behind Tennessee, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Arkansas, Alabama, Auburn and Mississippi State. We can improve on that if our bigs stop committing stupid fouls, we run the offense through Pullin, we stop throwing high risk passes and our young bigs keep improving. Tonight is a big game.
Thanks - good stuff. I like your point about SEC rankings. If the Gators can break through that Miss St/Aub level, they can be a good team and make the tourney. I think Jarvis's size + maturity would have been big in the SEC. Might be missing, unless we can be strong 1-3 in conference.
