Florida Gators

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Wow! Just wow! What a game! Florida beat Gonzaga in double OT 111-105. Jalen Hudson was the UF difference offsetting Gonzaga's Johnathan Williams who had a terrific game. Egor Koulechov had 4 points and generally did little over the course of the game. Box Score:

www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/boxscore?gameId=400999724

The Gators battled on the boards as both teams had 42 rebounds apiece.

More to come later, but I hope Chris Chiozza is okay. He couldn't do the post game interview because the trainer took him to the locker room to make sure he was alright. I hope he was simply exhausted, but he did hit the floor hard going for a rebound/dunk attempt late in the second OT.

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At The Buzzer Recap of UF's 111-105 double OT win over Gonzaga:

floridagators.com/news/2017/11/24/chris-harry-at-the-buzzer-florida-vs-gonzaga-pk80-instant-analysis.aspx

Haven't seen anything yet on Chris Chiozza so I hope/presume he was just exhausted after the game. Something from the post game should have come up by now.

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Three takeaways from the Gonzaga game:

www.gatorsports.com/2017/11/beyond-arc-3-takeaways-floridas-111-105-2ot-win-gonzaga/

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Gonzaga HC Mark Few: "Great, great basketball game. Just epic."

floridagators.com/news/2017/11/25/chris-harry-florida-stares-down-gonzaga-in-epic-pk80-double-ot-win.aspx

Next up: #1 Duke - Is it asking too much to win this bracket in the PK80 tourney against the #1 ranked team in the nation? Tune in Sunday night.

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Duke PK80 Pregame Stuff:

floridagators.com/news/2017/11/25/chris-harry-pregame-stuff-no-7-florida-vs-no-1-duke-nov-26.aspx

With that starting lineup, UF is acknowledging that the Gators can't compete inside against the two Duke big men. The strategy will be to make them run the floor and play defense out on the perimeter as much as possible. Duke plays a highly effective zone defense. For this lineup strategy to work, Mike White is pinning his game plan on the Gators continuing to hit a high percentage shooting including from 3 point range, basically shooting the Blue Devils out of their zone. An off night of shooting will doom the Gators to a loss. UF must also substitute liberally to keep the players legs fresh for this outside shooting strategy to work.

UF's big men don't have to score. Their job will be to be physical and foul Bagley and Carter when in the game. Frustrating the true freshmen will be advantage UF. Bagley is awesome shooting from the field, but neither Bagley nor Carter excel at the free throw line. Surprisingly, Duke starting PG Trevon Duval doesn't excel at the free throw line either. Between Hayes, Gak, and Bassett, UF has 15 fouls, 20 if you add in Chase Johnson, to give to keep the Duke big men out of their normal game. Point production out of the UF bigs will be icing on the cake.

Giving Grayson Allen his due, he is the glue that holds Duke's 4 freshman together. He's going to get his points and assists playing SF/SG. My hope is Egor Koulechov can get back on his game to help offset the 25 points Allen is going to put on the stat sheet.

The key to UF having a chance is hitting shots above all else. Finding ways to win against Duke with an off night of shooting is a recipe for disaster. Duke is the real Kentucky of 2017-18. The Blue Devils are that good now and will only get better as the season progresses. They have all the ingredients and depth, plays out to 9 deep, to be a national championship team.

My crystal ball says Duke will win, say 85-80. Vegas has Duke as a consensus -1 1/2 point favorite, but I think that's a bit too low. After playing double OT Friday night, the Gators will wear down in the second half. The Gators will have to play lights out on both ends of the floor for a chance to stay in the game and to get the upset win.

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Final

Duke 87
Florida 84

The Gators had a big lead late in the second half, but, between running out of gas a bit and slowing the tempo down by Mike White, they couldn't hold on.  

I wouldn't have slowed the tempo down as the Gators needed to keep scoring over running time off the clock, but I'm sure Mike White did what he thought was best with a tired basketball team coming off the double OT win over Gonzaga on Friday night. Over the last 6 minutes, the Gators were resorting to late clock one on one moves which UF can't win with. The Gators got their big lead by sharing the ball and making the extra pass. All of that stopped when White slowed the game down. JMHO, UF wins by 10 had the offensive strategy not been changed to a way too early slow down approach. It was like driving a big engine car 40 MPH down the interstate. I'm pretty sure that was a learning moment for the coaching staff. 

Bottom line, I predicted Duke 85 UF 80 with the Gators legs giving out in the second half. I didn't miss the call by much at 87-84 except I don't believe the Gators legs gave out as I suspected would happen.

I can't wait to see Duke again in late March when UF has John Egbunu as the final piece to what could be another UF national championship team.

Next up: at Florida State next Monday

[lz2112]

Nov 27, 2017 1:38:32 GMT -5 ETGator1 said:

Final

Duke 87
Florida 84

The Gators had a big lead late in the second half, but, between running out of gas and slowing the tempo down by Mike White, they couldn't hold on. I wouldn't have slowed the tempo down, but I'm sure Mike White did what he thought was best with a tired basketball team coming off the double OT win over Gonzaga on Friday night.

Bottom line, I predicted Duke 85 UF 80 with the Gators legs giving out in the second half. I didn't miss the call my much at 87-84. JMHO, slowing the tempo down played into Duke's hands allowing them to be the aggressors. Had UF continued to attack, I think UF would have won comfortably.

I can't wait to see Duke again in March when UF has John Egbunu as the final piece to what could be another UF national championship team.

Next up: at Florida State next Monday

It was a great game, but Duke was Duke at the end.

At least these games don't mean anything.

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Nov 27, 2017 2:04:02 GMT -5 lz2112 said:

Nov 27, 2017 1:38:32 GMT -5 ETGator1 said:

Final

Duke 87
Florida 84

The Gators had a big lead late in the second half, but, between running out of gas and slowing the tempo down by Mike White, they couldn't hold on. I wouldn't have slowed the tempo down, but I'm sure Mike White did what he thought was best with a tired basketball team coming off the double OT win over Gonzaga on Friday night.

Bottom line, I predicted Duke 85 UF 80 with the Gators legs giving out in the second half. I didn't miss the call my much at 87-84. JMHO, slowing the tempo down played into Duke's hands allowing them to be the aggressors. Had UF continued to attack, I think UF would have won comfortably.

I can't wait to see Duke again in March when UF has John Egbunu as the final piece to what could be another UF national championship team.

Next up: at Florida State next Monday

It was a great game, but Duke was Duke at the end.

At least these games don't mean anything.

UF outplayed Duke until the last 6 minutes of the game. We slowed the game down and allowed Duke to be Duke. It's like playing prevent defense in football which many times prevents a win. We were the better team and we didn't need to slow the game down. I think UF wins by 10 if Mike White hadn't changed his strategy late in the game. He got conservative way too early against one of the best teams with the best talent in the nation and got burned. Our players were resorting to late clock one on one moves which is a style UF can't win with. Sharing the ball and making the extra pass is what got us the big lead. White will learn from this so it is a good thing the game didn't have a real championship on the line, but the game will be looked at by the selection committee.

EDIT: As an update to my thoughts on Mike White's slow down strategy, it's being floated at Nuttin But Net (NBN for future reference) that the players were exhausted in the last 6 minutes of the game as Chiozza said after the game due to the 36+ minutes of the star players against Duke after having played a double OT against Gonzaga. The difference from my slow down thought is that White should have had more players on the court longer in the player rotations thereby ensuring the best players were fresh late in the game. The two players most mentioned are Deandre Ballard who played 9 minutes and Mike Okauru who played 3 minutes. That's SG/SF and PG getting minutes to keep our 4 best players fresh: Chiozza/Allen/Hudson/Koulechov. Not getting the player rotations right under the circumstances is a coaching decision just like slowing the tempo down would be. In fairness to Mike White, he said after the game that he did not order a slow down and that he wanted his players to go hard for 40 minutes. That being the case, I defer to Mike White mishandling the player rotations during the game. That is a learning moment too.

Probably the biggest complaint I ever had about Billy D was that he'd shorten the bench too much and his players ran out of gas at the end of the big games. What Mike White did with the rotations is a coaching choice that I've long been against, but White gets the big bucks and I retain my right to complain just like I did when it happened to a Billy D coached team.

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Unbeaten FSU at UF tonight on ESPN2 at 9 PM ET:

floridagators.com/documents/2017/11/30/2017_12_4_FloridaState_SunshineShowdown.pdf

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UF is ranked 5th in both the AP & Coaches this week.

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Speed Bump:

FSU 83
UF 66

Hayes has completely forgotten how to play basketball. He can't block out, can't block shots, can't give helping D, can't rebound, and can't score.
Nobody could hit their free throws.
Everybody is being flat footed and slow like the last 6 minutes of the Duke game.
UF got FSU's best punch right out of the blocks getting down 10-1. The nolies were far more motivated than the Gators.

Embarrassing isn't applicable, but concerning is. If I didn't expect a few losses prior to SEC play and Egbunu returning, I'd be disappointed. What I didn't expect is a player like Hayes totally failing and especially so after the way he played last season after Egbunu was injured.

[trnyerheadncough]

Dec 4, 2017 23:29:33 GMT -5 ETGator1 said:

Speed Bump:

FSU 83
UF 66

Hayes has completely forgotten how to play basketball. He can't block out, can't block shots, can't give helping D, can't rebound, and can't score.
Nobody could hit their free throws.
Everybody is being flat footed and slow like the last 6 minutes of the Duke game.
UF got FSU's best punch right out of the blocks getting down 10-1. The nolies were far more motivated than the Gators.

Embarrassing isn't applicable, but concerning is. If I didn't expect a few losses prior to SEC play and Egbunu returning, I'd be disappointed. What I didn't expect is a player like Hayes totally failing and especially so after the way he played last season after Egbunu was injured.

I watched most of this game. I don't follow college basketball as much, but I was surprised (pleasantly), with how the game went.

The Gators need to find it, because they looked bad last night.

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Dec 5, 2017 8:40:05 GMT -5 trnyerheadncough said:

Dec 4, 2017 23:29:33 GMT -5 ETGator1 said:

Speed Bump:

FSU 83
UF 66

Hayes has completely forgotten how to play basketball. He can't block out, can't block shots, can't give helping D, can't rebound, and can't score.
Nobody could hit their free throws.
Everybody is being flat footed and slow like the last 6 minutes of the Duke game.
UF got FSU's best punch right out of the blocks getting down 10-1. The nolies were far more motivated than the Gators.

Embarrassing isn't applicable, but concerning is. If I didn't expect a few losses prior to SEC play and Egbunu returning, I'd be disappointed. What I didn't expect is a player like Hayes totally failing and especially so after the way he played last season after Egbunu was injured.

I watched most of this game. I don't follow college basketball as much, but I was surprised (pleasantly), with how the game went.

The Gators need to find it, because they looked bad last night.

Mike White was furious after the game. He said the Gators lacked toughness and was the epitome of being soft. It's like the whole team was sleep walking.

Disgusting is more applicable than embarrassing. My two concerns after last night are the team doesn't seem to listen or care about following coaching to the point of Mike White inexplicably losing a good team and the continued failure of Kevarrius Hayes. Hayes has way more in the tank than he has been willing to give at any point so far this season. The best motivator is the bench, but that hasn't worked with Hayes.

I'm thinking a few starters who are not responding to coaching need to ride the pine too. Mike White has to get their attention even if UF loses games. Otherwise, a potentially terrific season could evaporate for no apparent reason. This team right now is lacking in heart and desire.

You are 110% correct. The Gators were a bad team last night. 

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Just another lackluster performance - so much potential, so much wasted:

www.gatorsports.com/2017/12/florida-knocks-off-incarnate-word/

John Egbunu reportedly it's coming back until later in January than first reported. These players can and should kick it up a notch. Unfortunately, I don't see signs of want to in their game and haven't since the late game collapse against Duke. It's a real head scratcher for me. I expected some ooc losses, but I didn't expect the players to be so lethargic in their play. It's almost like the players are bucking Mike White's coaching which is no way to improve and win games. I'm not sure if John Egbunu can help turn the team around, but he will be a welcome addition.


Next up Vandy in Gainesville. This should be a win, but not with the way the team is playing.

After that, a trip to College Station. The Aggies are a fine team even with a suspended player so you can almost surely put an L there.

This is where it was originally reported that Egbunu would return. Now, it may be after 4 more SEC games. If these Gators playing now don't get their act together over the Christmas holiday break, a promising UF season could go down the drain before Egbunu gets back on the court.  

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Crapola seems to stick to this team. Looks like it will take climbing a mountain just to get back to where the team was when the season opened:

www.seccountry.com/florida/florida-basketball-status-of-leading-scorer-jalen-hudson-uncertain-for-sec-opener-vs-vanderbilt