OGT MBB Florida @ Virginia 11/10/2023 ACCN (Fri) 7 PM

Yeah, that's what makes playing UVA so difficult. Other teams run that D but no one else is nearly so good at it. Kind of like Jim Boeheim's zone defense.

 

Thanks for the nice words uva. Hope you’re right about both of us making the NCAA tourney. Good luck the rest of the way.

 

Correct on all points.
On that last possession, we needed a 3 and only had 10 seconds to get one. I would have gone with Clayton, Richard, Rishwain, Kugel, and Haugh. And REALLY try to get it to either Richard or Rishwain.
I hate any and every loss, and we really need to win some of these big pre-con games. But I like what I see in this team, and I believe we win last night if Pullin were available.

 

Must be your first gator game

 

Against Nichols State. At home. Wowzers!

Also, Georgia beat Wake Forest at home last night. So that's something. And of course, Duke losing is like margarita night in heaven.

Others: South Carolina beat VA Tech, Mizzou lost at home to Memphis.

 

We had two bigs with double-doubles last night. That hasn't happened in, like, forever. If ever.

 

And Texas A&M beat Ohio State.

 

Slept off the pain of the last minute loss. Like many of you I saw a lot of positives from this game. My observations:

- Samuel is a beast. He's super active on the boards, plays good defense and has shown good hands around the basket. Some of those interior passes to Micah were great. What a great pickup.
- Micah, so far, is way better than I expected. Sure he played well against Loyola, but this was a good opponent/program. He was a difference maker when he was in the game. Great to see.
- I think Riley is trying too hard to live up to his own hype. We all know he's a great player. He just needs to settle down and not force it. I think we saw this (but worse) in Kowacie last year. I expect he'll be fine.
- Clayton is a warrior. The last couple of plays were a disaster, but the dude played 35 minutes in our 2nd game of the season against one of the very toughest defenses you can face. He will also be fine, especially when Pullin can give him the opportunity to rest more and even play off the ball some.
- There's a reason teams often score in the 50's vs UVa. Their defense is always among the toughest in the country. We had a lot of turnovers, but I think we did fairly well against them.
- UVa is a bit under sized, but our dominance of the boards was refreshing. Haven't seen that by the Gators in a long time. And it's not just height. You see the effort, positioning and athleticism it takes to be a good rebounding team. I love it!
- Can't wait to see how Pullin fits in to this team. Hopefully he's as good as advertised. Unfortunately, I think that leaves Aberdeen as the odd man out. We'll see.
- Very pleasantly surprised by Rishwain. Dead-eye shooter, but he showed some ball handling and toughness last night as well. Should be a contributor this year.
- The freshman bigs are freshman bigs. They'll struggle against top opponents, but will have some good games. Thank goodness we have Samuel and Micah!
- We've gotta figure out how to guard the 3 better.
- Very happy with the two "comebacks." A couple of times, it looked like UVa would comfortably pull away. Did not happen. That gives me a lot of optimism for the season.
- Would have been a very nice resume game. Hopefully we can knock off f$u and Wake to make up for it.

Go Gators!

 

I was pretty pleased with what I saw. This was not the game to be without Pullin. Beakmann may be the best defensive point guard in the country, and Clayton has to play 35 minutes almost exclusively against him. That’s a tall ask in your first season at the one with a new team and new system.

Also didn’t help that one UVA player took more shots from the line than our entire team, or that we went 14-32 on layups (against 6-14 for them). Infer from those two things what you will, haha.

But UVA is gonna be a really solid, top 25 tourney team. Returnees are good, newcomers are good, coaching is good, they always defend well, and they have solid shooting and athleticism. Not an elite team, but a real good one. And we lost by one score on a UVA-partisan neutral court without Pullin, while committing 15 live ball turnovers and only getting 4 bench points.

When Pullin gets back, that will solidify our 1-3 rotation. I was hoping Aberdeen could make a run at the spot this first week, but he just doesn’t look comfortable with the ball. Pleasantly surprised with Rishwain’s play on both ends given how little ball he has played since the injury. He should only get better, and that will give us a solid five guys out there on the perimeter. We absolutely have to shoot better from the arc and limit some of the bad decisions, but fresher legs will help.

Obviously, Samuel and Handlogten look terrific. Smart basketball players who are both surprisingly versatile. We just need more from Condon and Haugh, who to his credit turned it on late. Both played well against Miami, so I’m not overly concerned. But they really need the next few weeks to gain some confidence. All we need from those guys is rebounding and defensive energy. Shimmy will be back by conference play, but I would much rather see the two frosh step up before then.

 

2005-2006, haha

 

This game, one of those ups and downs I said would would happen as we come together as a team early. I knew of the early teams that would make us play their style was Virginia. We had a shot at the end even though the officials were clearly bias. This was a learning experience Coach Todd Golden will use to understand his parts and try to overcome Lazy passes and out of control drives. Also, we have to learn against good defensive teams you have to do things quick, crisp and go to the hoop physically. We are going to get there! Thanks Gators for not giving up and asserting yourselves. Watch the film and see why their offense works and we got sloppy. On defense, you have to keep fighting every possession. This will get you to the Big Dance. This is the first war where the opponent will do anything on defense. Learn from it, this is just one of many wars lining up. Go ask your strength coach how you can get stronger and faster, this will bring this team to where ya’ll want to be. Go Gators…

Riley does better when he plays team ball. When he does, things start going better for him. We need his super ability, because last night in the second half, he broke open UVA defense with two slashes inside, one an off the glass shot, the other going over two or three players and got it to go down. This one opened it up for the team, everyone rallied on the team. Of course the first half he was forcing threes and drives and not being patient. This team has some great talent and add in Zion, we just need Riley to play with his team and share the ball. His teammates know he is great and will pass, pick for him and do their part to help him get going, just play within the team. He is like trying to break a a horse like Secretariat. Once this team learns what each of them can do and when to help each other, teams playing us will have their hands full. Great analysis!

 

Absolutely agree on every point. You saved me from having to type it out.

Virginias box score has to be wrong….
26 of 58 from the floor and McKneely 3 of 10. To me I thought Virginia was at least 50% from the floor and McKneely was near perfect. Amazing how perception doesn’t meet up with reality at times.

 

This game, one of those ups and downs I said would would happen as we come together as a team early. I knew of the early teams that would make us play their style was Virginia. We had a shot at the end even though the officials were clearly bias. This was a learning experience Coach Todd Golden will use to understand his parts and try to overcome Lazy passes and out of control drives. Also, we have to learn against good defensive teams you have to do things quick, crisp and go to the hoop physically. We are going to get there! Thanks Gators for not giving up and asserting yourselves. Watch the film and see why their offense works and we got sloppy. On defense, you have to keep fighting every possession. This will get you to the Big Dance. This is the first war where the opponent will do anything on defense. Learn from it, this is just one of many wars lining up. Go ask your strength coach how you can get stronger and faster, this will bring this team to where ya’ll want to be. Go Gators…

 

Thanks but we are also missing one of our better ball handlers who is serving a 3 game suspension. If we had him, I think we pull it off. We will see what we are once all the pieces are in place.

 

Like the second paragraph. I am still steaming over some of the calls and no calls.

 

Agree all the way. Kugel had 0 assists last night. When we start hitting on all 5 cylinders we’re going to be tough to beat.

 

Great post..very refreshing to read..had positives along with areas that need improvement...

 

Could very well be. One thing about our defense, it’s meant to cause bad shots, NOT turnovers.
Getting that many turnovers is very unusual for us, and not something to generally count on. A good ball handling for you would have cut that number down by 2/3.

 

70 points against Virginia is a lot. They don't often give up that much. Clean up a few things and we'd have topped 80 easily.
The game turned quickly when we sat Handlogten and Samuel early together and inserted Haugh and Condon and Denzel. The mistakes piled up and we were down quickly by as much as we'd led. I think maybe against the better opponents, we should rest them one at a time, not together. At least until the freshmen start to figure things out a bit. Keep that steady play on the floor.

 

Our guys were trying to force-feed the ball into heavy traffic, because it worked against Loyola-Maryland. Whole different degree of difficulty against Virginia.