Since the very beginning, the Florida Gators knew they would have to excel on defense to be successful this season. It’s strange how similar Florida’s basketball team is to its football team. The offense has the capability to do just enough most of the time, but defense is what really drives this team, and when it’s not there, the result of the game usually reflects that.
With outstanding defense being Florida’s main goal, offense hasn’t been a main point of focus in this week’s preparations for LSU. “As of right now, we’re not worried about offense at this moment,” said sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen. “We’re worried about defense and just kinda getting back to defending, because I believe that our defense leads to offense.”
The Gators are now on a two-game skid after dropping games to South Carolina and Vanderbilt last week. While Florida held both teams to under 70 points, defensive communication and rebounding have been on a downward spiral. The defense even struggled in wins leading up to those games, but it has finally come back to bite a team that had been playing a dangerous game for weeks.
“We’re not a good enough team to think we’ve accomplished something because someone votes us to be in the Top 25 or because we open league play with a big win at Arkansas,” said Mike White. “We were 1-0 at that point, but really since then our defensive numbers have steadily declined. Our attention to detail on that end hasn’t been the same — even through wins. We’ve been fortunate in a couple games where we beat a good opponent and didn’t play up to our capability defensively. It’s not something you play with. I’m hopeful we get back to that level of defending.”
For whatever reason, Florida seems to look lost at the start of the second half almost every game. Not only on defense, but on offense as well. It’s like the game is moving too fast and the Gators can’t wake up from their halftime nap.
Florida looked to be that way nearly the entire second half against Vanderbilt, which led to the top three-point shooting team in the SEC finding open look after open look due simply to a lack of communication. Communication requires no athletic ability whatsoever. It only takes someone to speak up and use their voice.
White is dumbfounded by his teams’ inability to come out with energy in the second half and he is still searching for the right answer. He said he has tried everything from simulating halftime at practices, to analyzing more film at halftime, to getting out and working on defense before the start of the half, and none of it has worked.
“I don’t know. I wish I had an answer,” said White. “Defensively, against the 12 highest rated opponents that we’ve played, the first four minutes of second halves, we’re giving up 76 percent from the field, 76 percent. And a defensive rebounding percentage of 60 percent. And offensively, we have five assists to 12 turnovers. So, it’s all of the above to start second halves … The one thing we’re going to look at doing in Baton Rouge is try to put a lot of weight into the highest-energy guys in the first half and maybe go with the five that play the hardest in the first 20 minutes, just to get us going to start that second half, because we’ve got a few guys, for whatever reason, it just takes them a minute to get going.”
While White was down on the defense, he did seem hopeful in the response the team has taken since the home loss to Vanderbilt. After taking Sunday off, the Gators came back in recharged for practice on Monday and seemed to have a much better outlook for this week’s games and for the rest of the season moving forward.
“A few of our guys suggested a meeting yesterday,” White said. “That’s what we did. We watched film on our Vandy game and then we met for a long time. I think it was productive, to this point. We’ll see how much carryover we have. We were really sharp last night, defensively, in practice. We ended up going late last night because of that meeting, and that’s where our focus needs to be. We need to recommit and refocus to defending at the level we’re capable, then everything we will take care of itself.”