Florida Gators Basketball Speeding Up On Offense

As the Florida Gators basketball season quickly approaches, the Gators have been holding more scrimmages to prepare the team.

Head Coach Mike White recently discussed everything from the play of the freshmen, to officiating changes, to the offense — the most anticipated aspect of the team as the season approaches.

Now that Florida has held some scrimmages, they can begin to more adequately evaluate where their offense stands and how far they have to go.

For anyone looking for an exact progress report, Coach White provided such an answer when he stated that as a team he wanted them to be “getting to the point where we at least 75 percent understand our entire system and if we’re at 50 percent today, you just want to take that next step, really overall.” He continued. “But again I’m pleased with our leadership, our work ethic, our intensity level, how we’ve approached practices every day…We’re a little bit ahead defensively than offensively.”

So now that we have a general picture of where this team is, let’s delve a little deeper into what is going to help this offense as the Gators begin regular season play.

When asked about implementing more offense and working on improving it, Coach White answered, “it was more of an emphasis last week. That’s helped a little bit with what we’re doing with ball movement and role identification.” He echoed his idea of “role identification” a little bit later stating that “heading into that last scrimmage, I think probably guys had less questions in terms of where they were supposed to go.”

These statements sound a lot like Coach McElwain’s insistence that one of the most important things on his Gators football team is “throwing to the right color jersey.” The two go together because they both essentially imply that if the players do their jobs, get into proper alignment, and avoid mental mistakes, the system will take care of the rest. Personally, that’s how I prefer my head coach to speak. Confidence in the system.

Coach White stresses communication and intensity more than anything, and he and his players- especially Dorian Finney-Smith- have brought those up on more than one occasion. White also continues to praise the freshmen and their work in the offense, noting that Keith Stone “shot the ball really well” and has just come off of his best practice Monday.

And with Brandone Francis-Ramirez- who White considers essentially a freshman because he did not play his first year- White commented, “he made a bunch of shots” and has “some infectious energy as well.”

Again with the energy and intensity. Coach White realizes that his team needs to play quick and confident, especially in an up-tempo offense.

This style of play can turn a good team into a great one and serve as the great equalizer in a game against a top opponent.

Gators’ Forward Alex Murphy chimed in on the Gators quick-strike offense in their recent scrimmages, adding “we definitely played fast. It was fun, you know…to get out there with no stoppages, sort of just let us go up and down and let us play. It was fun.”

While players compete in practice, it’s a much different ball game getting to go out and actually play in a scrimmage. It’s assuredly a welcome change of pace for them to be able to see the fruits of their labor in a game-like situation. The players also had the opportunity to practice for the first time with referees officiating the scrimmage and were able see how the new rule changes would affect the game.

With the responsibility now on defenses to not be too aggressive towards offenses, it should allow the Gators’ offense to steal some points in early season games as teams attempt to adjust to the new rules while desperately trying to keep up with the breakneck pace of Florida’s offense.

 

 

austyn_szempruch
The son of a Florida alum, Austyn grew up hearing of the lows of the ’79 Gators and experiencing the highs of the Chris Leak and Tim Tebow led Gators. Through it all, he knew he was born to be a Gator too. Knowing that his greatest passion besides Florida football was history, he finally achieved his dream of gaining admission to the University of Florida in 2012 and decided to major in history. Throughout his college career he attended every Gator game he could, as well as gaining invaluable experience while interning at the Samuel Proctor Oral History Program at UF. During his senior year at Florida, he saw his chance to combine his writing experience from history with his love of all things UF and was blessed with the opportunity to intern at Gator Country. As well as the Gators, he is a huge supporter of the Eagles and what they plan to do with Tim Tebow. Austyn also enjoys the idea of devoting his life to being a professional golfer but settles for being a casual golfer with a decent drive and a bad putt.

1 COMMENT