The Gators turned in another poor offensive game in Sunrise on Saturday against South Florida. They shot just 39 percent as a team, including an 8-for-26 performance (30.8 percent) from beyond the arc.
Guard Myreon Jones, who was considered the team’s best shooter entering the season, made just one of seven shots from deep and just three of 13 overall. They turned it over 17 times, including 11 times in the first half, which the Bulls converted into 16 points.
However, thanks to some stifling defense and a couple of timely hot streaks offensively, they were able to overcome those offensive struggles. They went on a 17-2 run to turn a 16-13 deficit with six minutes to go in the first half into a 30-18 halftime lead. After South Florida cut their lead down to three points with nine minutes to go, they went on an 11-3 run over the next six minutes to reclaim control of the game.
It was enough for the Gators to escape FLA Live Arena with a 66-55 win in the Orange Bowl Classic.
“South Florida is a team that’s as sound and physical and disciplined defensively, especially in the half court, as you’ll see throughout the country,” Florida coach Mike White said. “They make you fight for every inch on the court and fight for every open shot that you can find, if you can find one. It wasn’t perfect, but it was a good W, and we’re ready to get back home.”
UF’s big run to end the first half started when freshman guard Kowacie Reeves banked in a three to tie the game. Forward Anthony Duruji grabbed an offensive rebound and scored on their next possession. CJ Felder did the same the next time down. Jones scored a layup and then buried his lone three-pointer of the game in transition following a blocked shot by Colin Castleton.
A Castleton dunk and free throw and a layup by guard Phlandrous Fleming concluded the scoring onslaught to end the half.
“We hit some shots and didn’t turn the ball over like we did in the beginning of the game, which was holding us back a little bit because they were getting transition easy layups, easy shots,” Castleton said. “We were able to stop doing that and stop turning the ball over and then just get out and do what we do on defense.”
The Bulls (4-5) made just one basket and turned it over four times during that stretch.
“I would say that it started on the defensive end,” Duruji said. “I think we were solid on defense, and we weren’t turning over the ball. We weren’t casual, and we did what we did. We were just ourselves. I think we got that rhythm, and we ran with it, and we were able to get a run.”
The Gators (8-3) carried that momentum into the second half and built a 16-point lead at the under-16 media timeout. However, South Florida stormed back with a 19-6 run of their own over the next seven minutes to make things interesting.
“Credit to those guys,” White said. “They continued to fight and made it really interesting, more so than it needs to be for us if we want to progress. I thought that the tempo slowed, unfortunately for us. The defensive intensity slowed, the ball movement slowed a little bit, but, with them changing their ball-screen coverage, I thought they did a good job there, which made it stick a little bit for us as well. They packed it in pretty tight there the last 10 minutes, and we had to make a couple of individual plays there at the end.”
Then the Gators put the clamps on them to pull away for good. USF went more than seven minutes without a field goal, and that ended up allowing the Gators’ struggling offense to create just enough separation on the scoreboard.
“That’s our identity and what we pride ourselves on,” Castleton said. “We go hard every possession with defense and just try to do the little things because that helps you get easy buckets when shots aren’t falling. To be honest, we’ve been struggling this year with field-goal percentage, and we all know that.
“Everybody’s working on what they’ve got to do to get shots up and just get a rhythm going, but that takes care of itself. We always say, ‘You really can’t control whether the ball actually goes in or not. You can control how hard you play on defense, if you rebound, all the little stuff that helps you actually win games. You can still hit shots and have bad defense and lose the game.’”
Castleton was named the event’s most valuable player after scoring 12 points and hauling down 11 rebounds. Duruji just missed out on a double-double with 11 points and nine rebounds. Fleming chipped in 12 points, while Tyree Appleby and Brandon McKissic each notched six points and five assists.
Caleb Murphy led the way for the Bulls with 16 points on 8-for-17 shooting, five assists and three steals. Javon Greene joined him in double figures with 10 points and four rebounds, while Jalyn McCreary and Jake Boggs both scored eight points and secured five rebounds.
While UF’s shooting numbers were abysmal for the fourth time in their last five games, White was generally pleased with the way his team played. They didn’t let their shooting struggles negatively impact their defensive focus and energy, and they outrebounded the Bulls by 18. They recorded 18 offensive rebounds, which is a testament to the amount of effort that they played with.
White even thought that they did a really good job of passing the ball and finding open looks on the offensive end of the floor at times; they just simply didn’t make enough of them, which allowed the score to be closer than what most fans were probably expecting.
“I was really pleased with the ball movement early,” he said. “I thought we made some skips and some extras, and that ball was popping, and we got really good looks early, which actually surprised me, the level of looks that we got, and they didn’t go in. And then, all of a sudden, the ball started sticking a little bit. We started passing up open ones and trying to drive it into their gaps, which they’re terrific in converging on the basketball, which led to some turnovers.
“They made a couple of individual plays, a couple of reach-arounds from behind, which led to live-ball turnover layups, pick-sixes. We settled in there a little bit midway through the first half, executed pretty well down the stretch late first half and got some stops as well.”
The Gators just need to find the bottom of the net more often. That’s the biggest thing that’s consistently holding this team back.
“I thought that we looked really good at times, and, if our shooting percentages go up, which is what we’re searching for, of course, maybe we would look better more times than that,” White said.
“We’ve got to find a way to make some shots. That’s on myself and our staff as much as it is anyone. A lot of this is trial and error. We need to change something that we’re doing in practice. We’re going to continue searching because we’re better shooters than this. We are. I believe they’ll go down, and maybe it’s trying something different.”
It wasn’t pretty, but the Gators played well enough to beat South Florida.