For serious Bball fans: what was exposed vs. Missou

[gatorrick1]

Let me start by saying I try not to post the day of a game because emotions in this place are too high. There are some technical Basketball reasons why we lost last night that go beyond KB taking a bad shot. This post will be for knowledgeable bball fans and those that want to learn a bit.

First, Coach Haith made some good adjustments as the game went on last night, but the most impactful was switching to on ball screens involving two bigs instead of one. UF has been IMO the best team in the country at guarding on ball screen action. They hedge beautifully and recover the right way, but equally important their rotations behind the ball screens are beautiful and make it very difficult to get an open look. By bringing the second big into the ball screen action Missouri made UF change those hedges and rotations and UF was simply not as good at it allowing Missou to get some wide open looks at the basket and ultimately forcing Billy to go zone the rest of the way. The good news is this is a veteran UF squad and I would bet a good portion of their next few practices will address this issue. Being a team where the core is almost entirely made up of upper classmen< the learning curve to improve should be a quick and successful one.

Second, UF's guards showed what I believe is a weakness of this particular group. When teams have the athlete's to really pressure the ball and deny our wings on the perimeter this group of guards struggle with decision making. While UF is one of the best perimeter passing teams in the country, maybe the best, our best entry post passer is Murphy. The way to beat heavy ball and denial pressure is with feeding the post, cutting and if you have the ability to put the ball on the ground and finish in the paint, strong drives to the basket. Our guards simply aren't patient enough in getting the ball in the post. If the initial post up isn't there we rarely ( other than Murphy ) allow our big to create a better angle or as a passer use pass fakes and the bounce to create a better angle for the post feed. This lack of entry passes in the post lead to way too many three's and contested jumper's. Luckily for us, few teams possess the ability to defend us that way our they just lack the defensive know how. This is the area that worries me the most going forward. To get to the Final Four we will have to beat some good defensive teams that have the horses to hang with us defensively and if we don't use the post more than one bad shooting night can cost us the Tourney.

Next, NO WY, this is not a knock on Prather who is doing an admirable job for a player his size. However, last night we saw how much the loss of WY can hurt this team. Bowers really caused CP problems last night and hit many what I call spurt busters last night. A spurt buster is a bucket you hit when the other team is on the verge of going on a nice 8-0 run or something similiar. There was a couple of times when UF was about to really extend the lead where Bowers hit a spurt buster. I believe with WY we win this game and Bowers doesn't have the night he had.

Lastly, I want to address our end of half/end of game situations play. Let me start by saying there is no one else I would want as head coach of UF than Billy D. He is flat out one of the best coaches on the planet and the scary thing is I think he continues to improve. With that said, Billy is much like many other coaches that were former player's. As someone that has had conversations for thousands of hours with coaches at all levels, I believe most coaches who were former good players believe that at the end of games you let player's make plays. In fact, the latest advanced metrics on this subject show in the NBA you have higher odds of winning on a last possesion bucket by not calling timeout and setting up a play then you do if you call a timeout. However, at the college level IMO where players have nowhere near the bball IQ that they have at the NBA level, your better off running a set special play. This is IMO Billy's biggest weakness. If you want to believe that he is drawing up special plays and KB just ignores them or last year that EW just ignored him then go ahead and buy into that. I would argue if KB ignored the play then his ass should be benched next game. Now if they just did not execute then OK, but there have been way too many examples over the years of guy's just not executing for me to say this doesn't somewhat fall on the coaches. I have to believe the Gators just like every other team have more than enough practice time to have a special play or two they run in those situations. I truly think this is just BIlly's philosophy that he puts the ball in the hands of who he thinks is his teams best play maker, runs a loosely based set and says go make a play. Again when you have a LBJ or at the college level an Oladipo then maybe it makes sense, but I would much rather we came out and ran a well designed play for a specific player in a specific spot with a second option of our choosing. I know many of these type of plays and I know Billy does too, again I just think it goes against his belief of let players go make plays.

The positive of all this is much of what went wrong can be fixed with practice and as an experienced team as I said before our learning curve should be quick. Heck even with all this I posted if we shoot like we can in the first half and make our FT's we win this game. But, as we all know sometimes you don't shoot well and its in those times the basics of basketball become so important and the ability to make the right basketball play and decision is the difference in winning and losing. Here's too WY coming back in time for SEC tourney play and our guards remembering our offense works best when being played from the inside out. Something tells me they will hear alot of this in the next few days.

[gator7_5]

Fantastic Post! Thanks for the insight! I'm not a high IQ basketball guy which why I refrain from ever bashing a coach or player after a loss. I just love to watch college basketball and hope we play well and compete. I appreciate any chance to gain knowledge.

[gator34654]

No real low post game, young is the closest thing we have but against good D and big men he is a non factor. We continue to choke during really close games especially away from home. It happens so many times I think the guys almost expect to lose. We cannot finish close games when playing away. Final thought, if our outside shots aren't falling where in big big doodoo.

[tim]

Great post, thanks for the info

[1bobcat]

I actually think Young has regressed this year. Last year he had no problem going toe-to-toe against other bigs that were very talented. This year he seems to worry more about not getting the calls from the officials.

[CAGator93]

Young needs to be more mean

[G8RNTN]

Good breakdown

[NorthCaptivaGator]

In our 4 losses we have faced strong on ball pressure that makes Wilbekin work hard at getting free and finding an open man, he is not great at it, he struggles, especially with smaller guards on him, he dribbles around too much and the ball does not move like it should, or like it does when teams neglect to be up in his face, I am afraid, as I was at the beginning of the season that this will be how teams attack us, especially when we have a lead, late. We will be susceptible to this on ball pressure which leads to turnovers and easy baskets. This is also where Erv was so good at drawing fouls and getting to the line and keeping the other teams from making these late runs. i am not sure how we counter it, especially without Will, as Prather is just awful at setting good screens, which was also a big factor last night.

[channingcrowderhungry]

Great post Rick. I agree with many above, but don't want to single out Young. Some is on him, certainly, and some is on the entry passes, as Rick stated.

A good team, when the 3s are falling, should be able to use that to spread the floor and create better passing lanes and opportunities down low. We tend to just keep shooting 3s. With Young off the court we really have no other offense besides the 3 ball. Young has a decent inside game, and has developed a nice hook shoot, but our guards have a tendency to get him the ball too far away from the rim.

[phideltdj]

One more quick note...in close games BD tends to go away from his substituition pattern. In this game he forgot about Frasier who didn't see the court in the last 10 minutes...I think most of the starters played the last 8 except Prather for a short time.

[notexgator]

I agree with many of your thoughts but my primary concern is why is kenny B doing his best Erving W impression. It is obvious he can not hit the 3 BUT he can drive and finish better than anyone on the team. And 2 Long 3 pointers in a row at the end of the game? Anyone one the team other than Patrick taking a 3 would have been better. The main problem with Patrick was discussed above, he needs to get mean and aggressive. If he leave after this year I see another Maurice S career, in lieu of a Al H career. I still believe in Billy and I think he will get it right, besides all our losses have been on the road with shall I say "home cooking" referring. Oh yeah, our free throws, what few we got, sucked last night

[regurgigator]

Thanks! I didn't catch the Item 1 wrinkle while watching the game. I was too busy being mesmerized by Pressey's quickness and passing abilities. I thought he caused us some major problems also, and that we won't face a PG as dynamic as Pressey again. (I was trying to think of other PGs that could cause us this much havoc and of the ones I've seen, Larkin seems to come the closest with his quickness - but he's not the passer Pressey is.)

Our passes to an overplayed wing are particularly aggravating. Why did Rosario even try that pass to Wilbekin on the sideline, which Pressey stole????

I agree that WY is a big part of our defense.

For game-ending plays, if you've got a superb play-making PG like Jason Williams or Pressey then it makes good sense to let them go create. Wilbekin has shown improved decision making and playmaking skills this season, but he does a lot of it in kind of a deliberate manner (does that make sense?) that may not be as effective in end-of-game situations.

I wouldn't mind seeing Billy draw up some end-of-game plays, but hasn't he made a point of talking about this team's maturity and ability to make decisions and adjustments on the fly? So, I kind of doubt he'll do it. But, I didn't think our last few shots were as bad as everyone else (except of course for the fact that they didn't go in ). I'm still pretty confident this team will be able to handle close games in the Tourney (and that we've come a long way since the Arizona end-of-game turnover-fest debacle).

[AlfaGator]

Originally Posted by 1bobcat

I actually think Young has regressed this year. Last year he had no problem going toe-to-toe against other bigs that were very talented. This year he seems to worry more about not getting the calls from the officials.

If Young hits his foul shots we win. He is a liability in close games down the stretch.

[Jonas]

I don't think Billy is happy with what KB did. He wanted Scottie to drive, but he couldn't. I guess we just couldn't execute what Billy drew up.

[lean_gator]

Yet saying all of that, we win the game comfortably if we make our freethrows.

[Matthanuf06]

It's simple. In close games we go from all world to an easy out. We play worse. Our FT% declines, TO% increases, ball movement declines, quality of shots decline, defense declines, etc. It is mental as the "technical" reason will vary but the underlying playing worse remains the same.

[channingcrowderhungry]

Originally Posted by channingcrowderhungry

Great post Rick. I agree with many above, but don't want to single out Young. Some is on him, certainly, and some is on the entry passes, as Rick stated.

A good team, when the 3s are falling, should be able to use that to spread the floor and create better passing lanes and opportunities down low. We tend to just keep shooting 3s. With Young off the court we really have no other offense besides the 3 ball. Young has a decent inside game, and has developed a nice hook shoot, but our guards have a tendency to get him the ball too far away from the rim.

Found a stat where we derive 36.4% of our points from the 3ball. 13th in the nation and surrounded by a bunch of nobodies of college basketball. If they're falling, we win. If not, we don't seem to have the inside game to overcome.

http://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-bas...rom-3-pointers

[bakaduin]

Originally Posted by 1bobcat

I actually think Young has regressed this year. Last year he had no problem going toe-to-toe against other bigs that were very talented. This year he seems to worry more about not getting the calls from the officials.

I disagree, Young showed vs Noel that he can score against quality big men. Young has continued to show all year how successful his baby hook is. While he isn't as automatic as Vernon Macklin seemed to be, he is pretty close. I think the problem is what rick addressed and that is getting him the ball. There are plenty of possessions that we don't go inside at all and I can't think of one possession where we went inside a second time after the big passed it back out.

[grant1]

No WY is the main thing, i think. We need 4 big guys for adequate rotation; right now we have 2. With Will, we still only had 3, but have managed pretty well. When it comes down to it, Murphy is more of an outside guy than inside, so it could be argued that we only have 1 big guy.

[gatorcwboyfan]

No interior offense coming down the strecth of games. At 49-36 with 10:54 left in the game Patrick Young didn't get a single touch. That's inexcusable.