It was a hard-fought 40-minute battle between the Florida Gators and the Gonzaga Bulldogs on Friday night in Orlando which ended with the Bulldogs outlasting the Gators 77-72. The Gators entered the game coming off of one of the best wins in Mike White’s tenure over Seton Hall on Thursday night, but were unable to salvage an even bigger upset against one of the nation’s best teams in No.11 Gonzaga.
The Gators got off to a hot start and had the ‘Zags fluster early in the competition forcing turnover after turnover, but the Gators inability to capitalize offensively off the turnovers proved to be what ultimately doomed them in the end. Mike White has found his scorer in Devin Robinson. Robinson accounted for the Gators first nine points and finished with a career high 18 in the five-point loss. Mike White gushed over the stout play of Robinson after the tough loss, “He (Robinson) did a lot of good things tonight. He was efficient, he was pretty good defensively as well. He’s flying around, using his length.”
While the Gators found some an offensive surge in Robinson, the struggles from beyond the arc continued as the team went just 2-19 on the evening. Instead of harping on the negatives after the game, Mike White chose to highlight the good that came out of the loss against Gonzaga, “Yeah, you know, it was a big opportunity for us and we really converted at the foul line and we’re going to take that positive away. And I liked our decisions with the basketball.”
Defensively, the Gators pestered Gonzaga into making bad decisions and forced 16 turnovers, but was only able to convert those into 13 points. The defensive effort came at a great time for the Gators as they will be facing some of the nation’s top scoring teams in the next few weeks including No. 6 historical powerhouse Duke Blue Devils in Madison Square Garden.
Even in the tough loss, Mike White was able to take away a lot of good in the Gators 5-1 start to the young 2016-2017 basketball season, “But the positive is we showed in spurts at least what we potentially could be capable of if we continue to have the right mindset.” And the right mindset starts with the Gators cutting down their turnovers which they did this evening as they only turned it over eight times. Of the eight turnovers, however, many of them came at inopportune moments that set the Gators back.
As the season goes on and quickly approaches the new year, head coach Mike White and company have to be excited about what they’ve seen thus far from their team. Hard work, snagging boards over seven-footers and making tough shots. The Gators are certainly headed in the right direction and will need to continue their good play as they reach a critical point in the season and they will look to start building a resume for March.
With the loss to Gonzaga on Friday night, Florida will take on the Miami Hurricanes on Sunday at 4:30 in the third place game and final contest of the Advocare Invitational in Orlando.