At some point you know they’re going to make all the big shots when it’s white knuckles time. At some point you know they’re going to get the critical defensive stops and pick up every loose ball. At some point you know they’re going to come from behind and win a tough game against a good team. You know all those things are going to happen, but you wonder when and all Sunday’s 79-75 loss to Tennessee could do is make you wish when will happen sooner and not later for the Florida Gators.
Sunday’s loss was the latest in this recurring theme of oh so close but oh so far away for the Gators (21-8, 8-6 SEC East), who could have moved into first place in the Eastern Division of the SEC if only they could have finished the job against the Vols (18-10, 9-5 SEC East), who moved back into a first place tie in the division with South Carolina. The Gators rallied out of a 16-point hole that they had dug for themselves in the second half and they were one fingernail away from tying up the game with 37 seconds left.
A fingernail is all 6-8 Scotty Hopson got on 5-8 Erving Walker’s shot from the corner. Walker rubbed off a screen to work his way free into the corner where he had his shoulders squared when he launched the shot that could have tied the game at 75-75. The way Walker had been shooting, odds were it was going to go down but Hopson left his man and raced to the corner the moment that Walker went up for his shot. He launched himself as high as he could and all he could do was get the tip of his finger on the ball, but that was enough.
Florida was forced to foul the rest of the way and although Tennessee did fire a couple of blanks from the line, the Vols did make four and that was enough to walk away with a win they had to have.
“Our backs were totally against the wall,” said Tennessee coach Bruce Pearl after finishing his post game show on the Vols Radio Network. “We had to come down here and get a win somehow.”
Winning meant surviving an all-out assault by the Gators down the stretch, one that saw them come from down 59-43 with 11:31 left to within a shot at tying the game up but that is the kind of season it has been. Of Florida’s eight losses, only a 79-63 drubbing by the Vols in Knoxville back on January 31 was by more than six points. In five of Florida’s six SEC losses, the margin of defeat has been by a collective 16 points, close enough that a shot here and there will probably be the difference in going to the NCAA Tournament or back to the NIT for a second straight year.
The easy thing is to point to the missed shots. Everybody remembers the missed free throws against South Carolina and Kentucky as well as the forced shot at the end against Georgia but nobody remembers all the little things during the course of the game that could have made the difference. It is those little things that frustrate Billy Donovan.
“Someone gets out of the offense and does something they shouldn’t do … someone misses a screen, someone misses a blockout,” Donovan said. “It’s all these little things that all of a sudden happen at different points and it gets magnified but that’s this team’s challenge, in my opinion, understanding how to do those type of things that ultimately impact the outcome of a game over a period of a time.”
Donovan will watch the film of Sunday’s game with the Vols and he will see all the times when the Gators lost a possession because someone didn’t block out or someone didn’t get a good shot off because someone didn’t hold their screen an extra split second or a Tennessee player knocked down a three-point shot because someone got lost in the defensive rotation and forgot to move his feet. That’s been the story in all of Florida’s losses, and not just the ones decided on a last second shot.
The Gators have to do all the little things because they simply can’t out-personnel their opponents or overwhelm them with their quickness and leaping ability.
“We had a couple of times we could have come up with some rebounds in key situations the second half,” Donovan said. “We made this ‘gallant’ effort to come back but athletically when they [Tennessee] needed to get something done, they just got it done and there were certain times that their athleticism overwhelmed us and there were times we could have done a better job. I think our guys need to understand that their margin for error is not very great. We don’t have a big margin for error.”
Against Tennessee, the Gators couldn’t afford any lapses on the defensive end of the floor but they had plenty of them in the first half, in part because Tennessee did a good job of spacing the floor and rotating Florida’s zone out of position, but also because there were way too many times when the Gators didn’t move their feet or didn’t fight through a screen, leaving a Tennessee shooter wide open. In the first half, particularly, the Vols made them pay. The worst shooting team in the SEC from the three-point stripe heading into the game, the Vols hit 7-9 in the first half. It was their barrage of five threes in the first 10 minutes of the game that got the Gators into an early 15-points deficit (29-14)
“I felt like we were back on our heels the whole first ten minutes of the game,” said Donovan, who felt the Gators were impatient and unproductive on the offensive end of the floor during that same stretch.
The Vols were only 3-12 on their three-pointers in the second half, but two of their three makes came in the first moments of the half when they were building their lead from the 45-33 halftime margin to 59-43 and the other was a dagger three by Hopson that pushed the Vols back to a 12-point lead (67-55) right after the Gators had sliced Tennessee’s lead to nine.
That three by Hopson and the last second three by Josh Tabb to end the first half were indicative of the constant uphill struggle it was for the Gators. They fought back from 15 down to within two in the first half but couldn’t hit the shot they needed to tie the game. They fought back from 16 down in the second half but a fingernail was enough to throw off the shot that could have tied the game.
The missed shots by the Gators only emphasize what could have been. All the things that never show up in the box score could have put the Gators in a good enough position that they wouldn’t have needed a furious rally and a clutch shot just to tie the game.
But that is the story of this team and this season. At some point, you figure they’ll grow up and they’ll win the close ones.
“They’re so close to being so good right now,” said Pearl. “If you’re going to get them, now is the time to do it. Next year … what Billy’s got coming back and what he’s got coming in like (Vern) Macklin … you don’t want to play them next year.”
But that’s next year. There are still two remaining games in this regular season and at least one SEC Tournament game. Two straight wins or three of the next four could get them in the NCAA.
Or they could be in the NIT again.
Where they go and what they do is up to them. There is still room for improvement this year. It’s not too late to make some decisions that translate into action on the court that impacts games. Donovan wondered Sunday afternoon if they’ve reached their saturation point — that moment of realization that enough is enough with losing and it’s time to take a leap of faith toward the next level.
“It’s how much do they really want to address those things?” Donovan asked out loud. “… For instance is Alex Tyus going to physically go in there and understand that as an undersized guy there are things that he’s going to have to do that are maybe out of context of who he is as a person and a player? Is Nick (Calathes) going to understand that he can’t take everything on himself and ‘I have to figure out how to incorporate different guys at different times. Is Dan Werner going to say ‘athletically there are things I can’t maybe do in certain situations so I have to use my mind a little bit here. Chandler … same thing. Is he going to figure out? They’ve all got things that they all individuall have to figure out and probably have them in roles that are bigger than some of them want but they’re in that role and here’s what it is. I have to address this and am I willing to address this and try to get better. I think that they are. I don’t see a reluctancy to do that. I just kind of think it’s there right now.
“I think that during something like this, the best thing to do as players and coaches is you’re always self-reflective. What can I do differently as a coach? How can I help them? And I think they have to get like that. What can I do? What should I be doing differently?”
They only have a short time to figure that out.
GAME NOTES: Calathes scored points and handed out seven assists to lead the Gators. He has scored in double figures 16 straight games … Walker finished the game with 16 points, hitting 4-8 on three-pointers including 3-5 in the second half … Chandler Parsons had 13 points and a game-high nine rebounds to go with two assists, two steals and a blocked shot while Dan Werner had 10 points, eight rebounds and four assists … Freshman Ray Shipman came off the bench to give the Gators quality minutes in the second half, scoring five straight points to ignite Florida’s rally from 16 down … The Gators were 13-28 on three-pointers but their overall shooting percentage was just 45.8 percent on 27-59 from the field … The Gators outrebounded Tennessee 34-32 … Tyler Smith (19) and Wayne Chism (18) led Tennessee.