:OGT-Florida vs. Missouri 1/20/24 8:00 PM ESPNU

1989 at Vandy when the two tennis balls were thrown with almost no time remaining and Vandy up two. John Clougherty calls the T. Dwayne S shoots the T's and ties the game.

We win in OT and go on to win our first ever SEC championship on the road at LSU. Vandy would have won the SEC if they had won that game.

I had to dig deep for that.

 

Good job. When we shoot FT and 3pt shots we R tough to beat. I would take 40% every game from 3.
We have 3 good young Bigs in Condon, Haugh, Handolton give them another 10-15 lbs of muscle next year we could better than good.
Still hoping for top 5 in SEC this year but got to win 7 -8 of next 10
Can we do that?

 

Have to hold serve at home. Still have 2 vs Vandy, but not many of the road games left (besides Vandy) are “expected” wins.

6 of the next 10 are home games. Our only chance is probably to be perfect at home. Since we are unlikely to steal more than a couple on the road.

 

San Francisco had just won their playoff game against Green Bay, so it must be pretty good, lol!

 

Kugel almost....8 points....not great but he does seem to be getting better

 

This was a good game but I still feel we can do better. I'm hoping we heat up at home

 

Most thought we be 3-2. We are 2-3 so we are only one game away to be on schedule.

 

Thank goodness we won. We needed a road win desperately.

 

It would be nice to nab some quality wins, our best wins so far are against Richmond on a neutral court and Arkansas at home.

 

That win over Pitt is looking better. They just beat Duke at Duke.

 

Upon further review...

Let me begin by saying this is the SEC, 2023/2024 version, and winning is going to be TOUGH, and that is doubly correct with away games. And so, good win and a monkey off their backs.

And now "to the rest of the story":

This year's team has been a combination of damn fun to watch and frustrating when they either don't win close ones against the upper-echelon teams or just plain don't compete against pretty good ones. I think we all know which games we are talking about in this regard. What I am used to is when this team does a brain fart (see Tennessee) it can and does get pissed against a lesser team. It reminds me of plenty of football seasons where they don't have enough cohesiveness to win against the better teams but then blow out a meh (or less) team because their personnel is just plain superior. It is what it is.

This game, IMHO, did not fit any of the above trends. To me, it was excruciating to watch. It really wasn't fun and they did not seem to have quite enough "stuff" to just put them away and put in the scrubs. I realize, as I said at the beginning, that there is nothing given in the SEC this year (okay, maybe Vandy), but still, if we have much more length and we have the skill to get the ball to them inside, we COULD potentially make them look like we did against Tennessee. But we did not, or we could not. That makes this team...?

We got a win. Perhaps THE plan was to let Bates be Knecht because no one else on Missouri's team was going to emulate the rest of Tennessee's team. But what I saw was several players whose role was to defend him and plainly could not. Kugel especially if I am being frank. I am not saying he did not play well, just that I am getting tired (and concerned) that our first round player can't guard a non-first round player well enough. And it goes back to what I (and probably every Gator fan) thought and that the team can jell to a high level and Kugel will push it to higher heights. That does NOT appear to be in the cards, although we have one more month of "shuffling the cards". We shall see.

Now to "that place". This team appears to be content being this team. The free throws are nothing special. Clayton appears as if he is being asked to do more than what Pitino asked from him and now his "given" on the line is no longer a given. Samuel, IMO, hit his ceiling against Tennessee (and others early in the season) and it is pretty good but it isn't quite good enough. I don't see another gear in him. It is what it is. I think it is plausible that Golden is going to make him the reserve for Micah and start Condon at the 4 (and Haugh his backup). And maybe that will get him more focused and determined, especially against our real peers: the 5th to 11th best teams in the SEC. I would HATE to think we slip to the 12th best record...IF being "content" is a given. We shall see.

Quite frankly, other than the "given" that Pullin gives us and the occasional savvy Clayton can bring (to me he is THE most bi-polar player on this team), the guard play is not what we need. It just isn't. And, as I said, if the players are not worried/pissed about their lack of greatness, this team is likely going to have to struggle - and have some help - to get into the tourney. And until further notice, I am really concerned. Next week to me will be HUGE as to what is our trend.

 

Who was that guy??

 

Thoought it was Micah's best game as a Gator. He also logged 30 minutes and stayed out of foul trouble

 

I very much enjoy your post-game takes. However, I disagree with your take on Samuel. I thought his ability to get the ball in the middle of the lane and either take it to the basket or pop it back out is what broke Mizzou's defense. Without him, I'm not sure we win that game.

 

I won't deny your take. I would only say that, collectively if we were that good then we should have pulled away and we plainly did not. Samuel did his part, but nothing more than what I say is his ceiling. This was NOT Tennessee...or Old Miss. That is my point.

 

We won by 12. It's their worst conference home loss by a good stretch. It's basically the same margin loss Missouri had at Kentucky.

If 12 point road wins are ho-hum, then we're plainly doing ok. They're not ho-hum, which is why we just had a nice jump in NET ranking.

 

the main issue is late in the game neither Samuel or Micah can shoot foul shots. I was at the game and couldn't figure why Missouri didn't keep fouling these two. it was good win but so far we have beaten the 2 worst teams in the SEC and lost to the two best teams.

 

I literally looked at my son and said, I wonder if that dude can play on the interior line on D.

 

Looks like Godzilla, plays like Barney.

 

Someone said they thought this was Kugel's dad.