Judging by the score, most would think the Florida Gators made a cake walk of defeating the Jacksonville Dolphins. The easy finish does not indicate the rough start.
Florida came away with an 88-47 win in its first exhibition, but also left the game with some pretty big concerns.
The biggest of those being the health of senior point guard Chris Chiozza.
Chiozza is the heart and soul of this Florida team, but he did not even make it through the first two minutes of the game Thursday night. He suffered a shoulder injury early on and attempted to stay in the game, but the pain was too much for him, so he took a seat on the bench for the remainder of the night.
The Gators managed against an inferior team without Chiozza, but losing him for an extended period of time would be a huge blow.
“I’m really concerned,” said head coach Mike White. “He’s about as valuable to us as it gets, probably as any player is to their team in college basketball. I hope it’s minor. Duke [Werner] thinks it’s just a sprain of his shoulder. It’s more of a pain deal. That’s not the final word, of course. We’ll get him checked tomorrow and hope for the best, but I know he’s a really, really tough guy, and if he can play, he’ll play.”
Without their senior leader, the Gators seemed unmotivated and unable to get things going. Florida was sloppy and made several mistakes that Jacksonville took advantage of to make it just a five-point game late in the first half.
The Gators took a slightly more comfortable 37-26 lead to the locker room, but it was not nearly the start they hoped for in their debut as a top 10 team in the country.
“I would’ve hoped we had some adversity tonight, and I thought we did,” White said. “I thought it got really loud in there, and I thought they were the aggressor. I thought they played harder than we did in the first half. I thought they played more physical than we did. And we were looking at each other, and we looked like a different team than I saw in practice yesterday. I thought JU just punched us.”
The second of the concerns Florida brought back to Gainesville was that lack of defense and aggression in the first half. It was not a shock for a first game, but still something that will not win games in the SEC.
After getting laid into a little bit from White at halftime, the Gators came back to the court with a completely new mindset.
Kevarrius Hayes and Dontay Bassett both had some mishaps defending early in the game, but came together to combine for six blocks. Bassett led the team with nine rebounds, while Hayes (6) and Gorjok Gak (7) followed close behind.
Good defense combined with a worn-down Dolphins offense didn’t allow any made shots from the field by Jacksonville until midway through the second half.
The offense also provided a bright spot in the game. KeVaughn Allen and Egor Koulechov led the charge in the first half before Jalen Hudson came alive to score more than 40 percent of Florida’s points in the second half.
Hudson (21), Allen (17), and Koulechov (17) all finished in double figures along with freshman Deaundrae Ballard who scored all 11 of his points in the final 20 minutes.
Following the game, White still seems to have the same opinions on where his team stands heading into the season.
“We’re gonna shoot for that every day and do everything we can within our control to try to be the best defensive team this group can be, and I don’t know how good that is,” he said. “I do think though that we present maybe a couple more problems offensively if we can make a big jump offensively as well. We’re not there yet either. I think this team is more talented on the offensive end, whereas last year’s team I thought was more talented defensively. And so, we’ll see how all that plays itself out.”
Florida will have one more shot to work the kinks out on both offense and defense as it takes on the Tampa Spartans at home on Sunday. The Gators will hope to have good news on the status of Chiozza by then and will look to be throwing the punches instead of taking them early in the game.