MBB OGT: #6 FLORIDA at #10 Kentucky -- January 4, 2025 -- 11 AM [ESPN]

Mark Pope runs perhaps the most creative and innovative offense in college basketball. They had some plays today that were freakin' brilliant in the Xs and Os.

 

Arkansas-Tennessee followed our game on the same alphabet network, fwiw. Yes, I believe those 2 games should’ve been flipped.

 

I'm not sure I would go "brilliant," but it is pretty difficult stuff to defend with all the off-ball screens and movement. We literally switched EVERYTHING and that will lead to some miscommunication and lapses in help defense. Take that baseline inbounds play where Butler hit the three: Chinyelu is protecting the paint (probably should have been on the inbounder given the size difference), then clearly did not realize he had the inbounder. That's an assignment he would seldom have ordinarily. And then on the Carr three, Martin is worried about the guard shooting, so he stays on Butler (I think it was Butler), while Condon hedges, then recovers too late. Hard to know what the call was there, but I suspect Martin missed the assignment because he was worried about a late shot clock jumper. If we are going to stay aggressive defensively, you have to live with those mistakes. Same thing with those backdoor cuts--you are going to get stuck with some guys trying to switch back out or help.

What bothered me more was our inability to disrupt passing lanes or create any pressure on the ball. That's where we usually turn it on. We only forced 6 turnovers with 4 points off turnovers, because so few were live balls (3 steals). We only committed 9 turnovers, but that led to 20 points for them, with 6 steals--and that's an area where they have not been exceptional. If we are going to be aggressive switching and scraping defensively, we absolutely have to create more disruption, and our inability to do that today may have been the difference.

That said, UK is an exceptional offense, and Auburn and Bama may be the only teams we face this year on par with them. I would expect very similar outcomes in those games, frankly. But that should surprise no one. The realty is that this isn't a top 10 defense, and Golden has said so all along. He keeps underscoring that we need a top 40 to 50 defense to go with a legitimate top 10 offense. And absolutely nothing we saw on the court today dispels that offensive ranking: we actually gained a spot in KenPom despite the loss, and I can't imagine any other team puts up 100 in Rupp this year. UK is going to be very hard to beat at home with that offense, and we were some missed free throws and two missed late shot clock threes away from doing that today.

 

May have felt like it, but it wasn't. It was against vastly better offense in a vastly tougher venue. We contested the rim immensely better, and did so without fouling (we were -11 in FTs then, but +5 today). We were also outrebounded (-1 then, but +8 today). Colorado lived in the paint because we could not stop dribble penetration, but only took 10 shots from the arc. Kentucky put up 29 (nearly half of their shots), many of which were contested or simply open because we got lost on switch. This was a better performance against a better team and a tougher floor, IMO.

 

Wait, I thought that's what we said last year when we just ran drop coverage? Now that we are switching (on ball and off) and hedging, we are an easy scout?

 

I expected he would struggle to start. That doesn't mean he is "not an SEC caliber big." The kid was late bloomer who weighed like 180 as a HS senior. He has basically played the post for about three seasons (one at Apopka, two at Chattanooga, where he had 13-6-3 at Auburn last year). Coming into conference play, I thought he would struggle at first with the speed and physicality of this league, but I see no reason he can't come around. He has good size, length, and strength, and he was a dominant rebounder and shotblocker at a lower level. He just needs time--which is fine, because Condon, Haugh, and Chinyelu means we don't need him to play more than 10-15 minutes a game at this stage.

 

The decisive stretch seemed to come when we had cut the lead to two at the under-four timeout, then forced Kentucky to take the ball out bounds at kind of an awkward spot on the floor with about three seconds left on the shot clock. Then Butler hit that way-too-easy three off the out-of-bounds play to stretch the lead to five, we missed a three on the other end, then Butler hit two free throws to extend the lead to seven. Kept fighting, but -- after quickly checking the play-by-play -- I don't think we were able to make it a one-possession game after that point.

 

I was thinking having Condo come of the bench. He was getting pushed aside due to not weighing enough and Kentucky’s bigs having their way with him. He hesitates under the board to make a move to score and he doesn’t feel comfortable shooting the three. Easy to get three pointers off him. With no real inside scoring basketball front court player, everybody will just foul our bigs and get rebounds off missed ft’s.

 

Haugh played more minutes than Chinyelu. What does it matter who starts? And it’s not like our starting unit is struggling. It was ranked the second best in the country during the non-conference slate, IIRC.

The problem with Haugh is that he can’t play the 5. His rebounding and block rates are all lower than the other three bigs, and he is much smaller than them. Condon isn’t finishing well right now (like last year), but suggesting that he is getting bullied is a strange take.

 

Well, one thing we did learn today is that Chinny is an SEC caliber player.

 

Yes, we had a pretty one-dimensional defensive approach last season.
It’s not the way are defending that makes us an easy scout, but that it’s the only way.
Did you see a lot of defensive adjustments or alterations today?
More broadly- I think you need to have, within your defensive arsenal, the ability and willingness to change style… whether it’s pressure, zone, firing the post.. something different, even if to disrupt rhythm and game flow.

 

Great basketball game played at a high level. I just watched it. I was hoping UF would win and I loved seeing DeSantis at the game!!

I do hate that we don’t play down here. You guys are going to have a great season.

 

This. Our old friend, missed routine free throws. And the turnover scoring. Props to Ky, they were good.

 

you were hoping Florida would win? Why??

 

I didn’t read everything on the thread so it may have been discused but it seems pretty straightforward. Kentucky was 18 of 24 from the FT line. We were 22 of 35. That was the difference. UK left 6 points at the line, we left 13.

 

10 am for me in CST. Almost had to set the alarm.

 

Yes and the 16 point run they had turned the game 180 degrees.

 

he's a Power Forward. Tyrese Samuel would have been good to have in this game though.
We don't have anyone 6'6 to 6'8 on this roster

 

Agree, this was the biggest surprise