OGT-Florida at Kentucky 2/4/23 8:30 pm ESPN

Gotta find some wins. Losing a game to someone like Vandy or Arkansas would be very bad. No room for error at all now.

 

CC won his head to head with Oscar bigtime!

 

I don’t know how we wound up with a shot to tie at the end other than Castleton’s dominance. To wit:

We failed to get back on transition defense.

We didn’t rebound well.

Reeves was disastrous with awful shot selection and poor defense.

We got zero calls when we drove aggressively to the hoop. (What else is new at Rupp?). UK’s center camped out in the lane for six seconds with no three second call was atrocious and yet still might not have been the worst missed call in UK’s favor tonight.

It’s a shame. This game was there for the taking.

 

We need to shoot better. That’s my take away.

 

One of the better performances by Castleton that I’ve seen. Other than a couple of bad/forced shots, he played well on both ends of the floor. Points off turnovers was the difference in the game.

 

Needed just one other Gator to show up besides Castleton and the game was there for the taking. Tshiebwe isn’t going to have many games that he has such a poor scoring performance. Credit Castleton for playing Tshiebwe tough.

 

We actually had a chance to tie very late when UF crawled to within 3. CC was amazing. Unfortunate his performance was not rewarded with a W.

 

TBH watching the game I never felt we would outscore them—as usual too many missed makeable shots, too much matador defense. Credit to the team for keeping the score close at the end

 

Did tonight seal a first team all SEC spot for Colin? I would like to think so.

 

I thought Lofton played well tonight and generally pretty as of late. He takes an occasional bad shot but not so much. He does a good job bringing the ball up court and into our offense. Bonham, on the hand, is wild and unreliable. It’s a shame because he has some talent that hasn’t been polished. Our guards get beat on defense way too much.

 

Maybe Castleton’s best game tonight. In the past he has been bullied by the better centers but tonight he put it on Kentucky and the POTY. Our offense is just not good enough.

 

I always feel like this when watching this team. If Castleton isn't there where would the gators be? He is so money that he might be hindering overall team improvement (a little like AR on FB team). If they can find a way to improve offense a tiny bit this is a very good team.

 

Sure

 

Is Fudge still limited? He only played 13 minutes last night. He gives us some much needed rebounding and size that Reeves is not providing (16 minutes)

 

Lofton was very good last night, Will Richard is our glue man, these two with Castleton carried us last night. Just giving these two props!

 

I don't like talking about refs as THE reason why we lost. I did not see enough one-sidedness to play that card. What I did see was that this season, we match up pretty well against them athletically. But still, we needed to have an x-factor player or two to emerge. I think what we see from the Lofton/Jones combo is basically their ceiling. One may be better that given game (Lofton this time) but not enough to carry the team with CC. Kugel just seems to do something remarkable but it does not lead to even more. He is still learning. Richard needed to be one of the two. He wasn't. The other choices were Fudge and Reeves. Nope, not at all. Bonham, for what we need him for: instant offense when we are stuck, isn't in the cards anymore. He appears to be the guard equivalent to JJ; a respite and not much more.

The game, besides the requisite inconsistent shooting by us, was about their making good shots and us not. The only reason why we "had a chance" was because Oscar T had a BAD game beyond rebounding. If he had a game I expected, it would have been over after the first half. Mark this game with the Auburn and both aTm games: just not enough offense to win them.

 

I agree with most but, on the other hand, if either Jones or KR or Keugel or Fudge had a good scoring game (Richard and Lofton both got 13) Florida would have won easily. See how I did that too? LOL! Truth is Florida matches-up pretty well with Kentucky already and plays excellent defense so if the shots start falling these kids will be dangerous.

 

Yes, and thus our need for an x-factor. To me, Richard played decent but wasn't the difference. The others did not add to the equation. And as I said, if Oscar had one of his regular games, this discussion would not be made.

 

I understood and I agree if one of the four can step up they will be your x-factor that night. I also am not willing to just concede Kentucky is measurably better than Florida when they're not. The best Florida can hope for is to keep it close if Oscar has a bad night? Nah. You seem to be looking at it from a glass-half-empty perspective and I want to promote the glass-half-full since I think these kids aren't that far away from winning more games against good teams . . . and I am a lifetime member of the Sunshine Pumpers Club. LOL!

PS -- CC (and others) caused the POY to have the game he had last night.

 

Yes, Lofton had a good game. Would like to Fudge drive more to the basket without running into a defender.