For the first time this season the Florida Gators were able to showcase a new identity on the court, but with it came plenty of highs and lows.
Despite displaying a poor shooting game from the field collectively, Eli Carter provided a bright spot, scoring 21 points and draining five three-pointers to lead the No. 7 Gators over the Barry Buccaneers 79-70 in an exhibition contest in the Stephen C. O’Connell Center Thursday night.
This game marked the second narrowest exhibition win in the Billy Donovan era and went on to prove the team’s lack of defense over the preseason showed against the team’s first opponent.
“I’m a little more concerned about resiliency and our perseverance on the defensive end of the floor in terms of collectively being able to defend,” Donovan said. “I’m trying to figure out right now are we even talented enough to play defense? But the problem with that is, regardless of what you do or how you play defensively, you still gotta go hard and you still have to do something, you know? I think we’re better than what we showed, but we’re not tough enough.”
The Gators allowed 70 points to a Division II team that also out-rebounded Florida 42-39. Barry has now collected more rebounds than two Division I schools in Louisville and Florida.
Florida also shot 37 three-pointers and only made 12 to end off shooting 32-percent from the arc and fewer than 42 percent from the rest of the field.
But Donovan wasn’t worried about how many shots his team took and instead needs his players to put up shots.
“I was fine with a lot of the three’s,” Donovan said. “My thing is when the ball is at least penetrated or approaches the basket it puts pressure on the defense at the basket and then you get another shot, kick the ball back out, you know those are shots you’re going to have to take and I thought in the second half we actually did a better job of driving it.”
Although the woes of a first game of the year appeared obvious, Carter, Dorian Finney-Smith and Michael Frazier II guided the Gators on offense.
Finney-Smith finished the game with a double-double recording 16 points and 10 rebounds and Frazier II added 15, but shot only 3 of 12 from beyond the arc.
While overall the Gators showed the growing pains they would battle through this season Carter provided a bright spot for Billy Donovan’s club. The Rutgers transfer was last seen limping around, recovering from a leg injury but showed that the hard work he put in this offseason has paid off.
“Yes,” Carter said about agreeing to become the player he once was. “It’s been long. I’ve been working hard every single day in the gym, doing extra stuff and I still have ways to go. I didn’t know what I was going to come up with (tonight), but it was a great start.”
After tonight’s performance, Donovan understands that this season will be a process among many things and it all starts with rebuilding the defensive minded approach on the court, and also developing an inside presence, which is absent right now.
“We’re not going to have one,” Donovan said of having an inside post game. “That’s is something we are going to really have to figure out in terms of putting pressure at the basket. We don’t have a back to the basket post player at all that we can throw the ball inside to. We got to move the floor around a lot, create penetration, hit guys rolling to the basket, try to get to the free throw line, at least do some of those things in terms of putting pressure at the basket.”