Bacon too much for Florida Gators in loss to FSU

It was a tough night in Tallahassee for the Florida Gators, as the team suffered its third loss of the season to in-state rival Florida State. The 10th game of a brutal 11 game stretch away from home proved to be too much for the Gators on Sunday night. The end of this difficult span is in sight, with a return home coming in just over a week, but Mike White would not use it as an excuse for his players following the game.
“I appreciate you trying to give us an excuse, but Florida State was better than us,” said White. “We practice. Our guys have embraced practicing hard. They work hard. We’ve shortened practices. We’ve given them plenty of days off. It’s more of a maturity, mentality, mental and physical toughness thing, in my opinion.”
With all the practices in advance to Florida State, the Gators were still not prepared for sophomore guard Dwayne Bacon. Bacon was Florida’s Achilles heel in last season’s 73-71 loss, as he was 9-for-17 in a 24-point performance. It worked last year and it worked again this year. He nearly duplicated his numbers from that performance, going 9-for-18 from the field with 24 points.
The Gators knew what was coming with Bacon, but still could not stop him. Florida put an emphasis on contesting his shots in preparation for this game, but he was hot. Even his toughest shots still seemed to be easy.
Bacon was 7-for-11 by the end of the first half. The teams were tied seven different times in the first half, but the second half told a much different story. Bacon played a major role in helping Florida State take control of the game early in the second half. He scored nine points in an 18-6 run by the Seminoles that gave them a 56-44 lead. While Florida didn’t make things easy for Florida State in the end, the Seminoles would not give up the lead again in the game.
“I thought they were terrific offensively in the second half, got off to a great start,” White said. “I thought Bacon got them going, not necessarily him scoring on every one of those possessions, but early second half I thought he did a good job of getting in the paint and breaking down our defense.”
The second half of all three of Florida’s losses have all been eerily similar. Even the final minutes of the first half have been close to identical. It’s like something just falls apart in Florida’s mindset after starting off strong against good opponents.
The Gators rely on defense to win games with an offense that lacks a true shooting threat. When Florida’s defense breaks down like it has in these losses, the offense just isn’t enough to make up for it. That seems to be the case in both basketball and football for the Gators.
“It’s been a common theme for us defensively in all three of our losses. In the second half it’s just not the same,” said White. “49, 47 and 46 points in our three losses, for whatever reason. We’ve got to maintain that energy level, that intensity level, the communication level when we’re away from our bench because we can’t afford to drop those levels against a team, against a guy like Dwayne Bacon. He’s not the only guy, of course, but he comes to mind first and foremost.”
Despite Kasey Hill’s 21 points and KeVaughn Allen coming up big in the second half, with 13 of his 16 points coming in the final 20 minutes, Florida still came up short. The Gators cut the deficit to just three points twice in the final three minutes of the game, but could not take advantage of open looks and missed free-throws by Florida State.
On a career night, Hill was not focused on his personal stats following a third consecutive loss to Florida State. “I honestly don’t care. We lost the game and if we would’ve won the game I would’ve been way happier, but I don’t care about that,” he said. “They outplayed us. They won the game. That’s it.”