If you had placed a plate of nails in front of Amanda Butler she would have chewed them into small little pieces and sparks would have flown when she spit them out. That’s how mad she was. Mad at her team for not playing with any toughness or intensity. Mad at herself for not being tough enough as a coach to get her team to play hard every single possession.
If there is one sequence of plays that defines the kind of night it was for Butler and the Florida Gators it came with 5:00 left in the game with the Gators within striking distance of Arkansas at 65-58. Charity Ford launched a jumper for the Razorbacks but Ceira Ricketts outhustled two Gators to the basketball for the rebound and a fresh shot clock. Arkansas moved the ball around the perimeter and found Ricketts in the lane for a 10-foot jumper, which she missed and then outhustled two Gators for the basketball on the left side of the lane. Another fresh shot clock after 22 seconds had expired from the clock. That led to a missed three-pointer by Ayana Brereton 20 seconds later, but Ricketts literally stole the ball away from three Gators trying to converge on the ball. Once again, another fresh shot clock and another 17 seconds gone for good. Brereton launched another three, the fourth shot in this sequence, and once again the shot wouldn’t go down.
This time Sharielle Smith grabbed the rebound for the Gators but a full 1:09 had disappeared from the clock and when you’ve spent the whole game trying to come back, the last thing in the world you need is to lose a chunk of time without having a chance to score.
As if the four-shot sequence by the Razorbacks wasn’t disheartening enough for Butler, Lonika Thompson had her pocket picked by Lyndsay Harris 10 seconds later. Arkansas milked 26 more seconds off the block before Brereton got fouled and hit a pair of free throws with 3:16 left to stretch the lead to 67-58.
That was the kind of night it was for the Gators (22-5, 8-4 SEC), who have faded from Southeastern Conference contenders into a team fighting to keep its head above water with three straight losses.
“I think we really embarrassed ourselves with our effort tonight and really got outplayed,” said Butler after the Gators went down by an 83-74 count to Arkansas (16-11, 5-7 SEC) before a sparse crowd of 731 at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. “There were some stretches where it looked like we really might be interested in fighting but Arkansas wasn’t going to go away. We’re not playing anywhere near 40 minutes of basketball.”
The Gators are also not playing anywhere near the level they were playing back 12 days ago when they beat Tennessee to every loose ball and gave the Lady Vols a lesson in who wants it more. It was obvious from the first couple of minutes in Thursday night’s game that if the Gators wanted it more than Arkansas they would have to first find the switch and then flip it.
The problem was Arkansas had its switches flipped the whole game and the Razorbacks never once let up. The Gators, on the other hand, had those stretches when they looked like a team that has been ranked as high as ninth in the nation this year.
Unfortunately, there were far too many when they played like a team going through the motions.
“It was clear that Arkansas had purpose in what they were doing and they had absolutely no fear of us,” said Butler. “It’s really disappointing with our lack of consistency and ability just to play with toughness on either end of the floor but it’s especially embarrassing to give up 83 points on our home floor.”
The Gators kept it close in the first half even though Arkansas was winning the battle for loose balls and making all the hustle plays. When the Gators answered a 6-0 Arkansas run with a 4-0 mini-run of their own to close out the first half trailing by two (34-32), it seemed that the Gators had weathered the storm and would set things straight in the second half.
Settling matters in the second half has been the MO for this Gator team, but the magic that carried the Gators to a school record 22-2 start has disappeared in the last three games. It wasn’t there at Vanderbilt or at LSU and it certainly wasn’t there Thursday night although the Gators did dig themselves out of an eight-point hole midway through the second half, cutting the Arkansas lead to 51-50 on a Sha Brooks three-pointer with 10:53 left in the game.
At the other end of the floor, the Gators made a defensive stand, getting the ball back when Brooks blocked Shanita Arnold’s jump shot but the Gators never got a chance to take the lead because Brooks got her pocket picked by Ford, who drove the length of the floor for a layup that gave the Razorbacks a 53-50 cushion with 10:12 remaining.
That was as close as the Gators came to taking the lead. They did rally from 11 down to within four (77-73) on a three-pointer by Steffi Sorenson with 33 seconds left but at that point in the game it was already a foul shooting contest and Arkansas made 6-8 the rest of the way.
That sent the Gators down to defeat for the third straight game and this loss, perhaps more than the first two of the recent slide, had Butler shaking her head, wondering where the trademark toughness and intensity has slithered off to in the last 12 days.
“The only thing that’s going to get you out of a losing slump in this league is toughness and fight,” Butler said. “No one’s going to get newer and better players or newer and better plays. None of those things are going to change. At this point of the year, the toughest teams are the ones that are going to continue to excel or begin to excel.”
Butler was clearly angry but as mad as she was with her players, that was nothing compared to the anger she was feeling for herself. She pointed the finger at herself for choosing the wrong approach to getting the Gators out of this losing streak.
“I chose and obviously wrongly so to stay focused on what got us to 22 wins as opposed to what had got us to two losses. Clearly I was not hard enough on our team because we weren’t focused on the things that do well and we need to be focused on the things that we’re not doing well. I’m not being tough enough on them and that will change.”
She has two days to find out if her team responds to tougher, more intense practices. South Carolina comes to town Sunday for Florida’s final home game of the year and this could be a real indicator of a team whose season has gone south or one that still has some fight left in it.
GAME NOTES: The Gators wasted a combined 47 points from their senior leaders, Brooks and Marshae Dotson. Brooks scored 27 points, connecting on 4-7 from the three-point line and 7-8 from the foul line. Dotson scored 20 points including 11 of Florida’s first 15 point of the game … What killed the Gators was a lack of offensive production from anyone not named Brooks or Dotson. Sorenson and Thompson combined to shoot 3-23 from the field … The Gators were 7-25 from the three-point line while Arkansas was 6-14 … The Razorbacks outscored the Gators by 10 points from the foul line. Arkansas was 21-34 while the Gators were 11-15 … Smith had 13 rebounds for the Gators, a career-high effort.