When it was announced that Florida and Missouri would be tipping off at 9 PM ET local time you knew that some craziness was about to occur and that was exactly what happened as a chaotic game that took over two hours and thirty five minutes to complete ended with the Tigers handing the Gators an upset 83-82 loss. This game had, well–just about everything in it. Missouri point guard Tony Perkins was thrown out of the game with a flagrant 2 for shouldering Alijah Martin in the “groin area,” Thomas Haugh nearly fouled out before a review switched the call to a rare “hook and hold” flagrant on Missouri, and there were striking individual performances by Caleb Grill to go nuclear from three while Walter Clayton on the other end kept the Gators alive. This very much had a strange feel of an atypical game that finished near midnight in Gainesville and Florida was caught on the wrong side of chaos. With the loss Florida falls to 15-2 (2-2 SEC), and they won’t be happy dropping a home game when they were projected to win.
Scrambled Defense
Missouri has been a capable offensive team this year but not one that’s particularly explosive but Florida allowed them to get whatever they wanted in the first half as the Tigers posted 50 points in the first half powered particularly by the play of shooter Caleb Grill. Just a couple of games ago the Gators got torched by Kentucky’s Koby Brea, a specialist shooter with size, and they unfortunately saw the same things go wrong with Caleb Grill who was able to get free for open looks off of screens on his way to 6-10 from three**. As a team the Tigers shot 11-29 (38%) from deep which was a big factor in this game and it spoke to a Florida defense that did not come in with a good level of focus and did a poor job of handling Missouri’s scripted actions. This was a major step back in Florida’s desire to be one of the top defensive teams in the league, but they’ll hope this is a lesson they can learn from.
**I would be remiss if I didn’t mention the fact that on Grill’s final three late in the game it appeared his foot was one the line, which of course is a rather important situation in a game that was decided by one point. It was also somewhat shocking that they didn’t review this given the fact that the game saw countless reviews for all kinds of violations. This will be a story to monitor in the coming days.
Slow Start Offensively
Florida’s lack of focus on the defensive end was telling but that lack of focus seemed even more apparent on the offensive side of the ball where the Gators took all kinds of wild shots early in the shot clock while also turning the ball over 13 times. Not only is the turnover number large–but many of these turnovers were particularly egregious where players threw the ball directly into the hands of Missouri. The players don’t deserve all the blame here as the staff also struggled to position the players in a position to generate any flow, particularly when it came to the special teams element of the game. Florida ran the same baseline out of bounds play five times (a different play they put in to counter Missouri’s zone that they like to go in for these plays) which Missouri was all over forcing three Florida turnovers and nearly getting a fourth if not for the Gators scrambling on the hardwood to save the possession. Walter Clayton was able to bail out his teammates with tremendous shotmaking and individual efforts (28 points) but no one else on the Gators seemed to be playing on the front foot.
First Time For The Frontcourt
So far this season the Gators have had a massive advantage in the frontcourt and it has been a driving force in them dominating non-conference opponents and in their early SEC wins. In pretty much every matchup this season you could say the Gators won the frontcourt matchup until Tuesday when Missouri’s big men rotation of Mark Mitchell, Trent Pierce, and Josh Gray got the best of Florida’s group. The Tigers aren’t known for their big men in particular but it’s a group of veteran players with huge frames and for the first time this season Florida’s post players looked like the smaller, more inexperienced, less confident group. Missouri actually won the rebounding battle with 16 offensive rebounds and their bigs had a number of big buckets early as they drove Florida’s centers down towards the block and shoved them out of place before finishing with a layup. This could be a great learning experience for Florida’s bigs after they haven’t needed to be tested yet this season and it will be fascinating to see how they respond.
Final Thoughts
Every part of this game was bizarre. The start time was bizarre, the officiating and number of reviews was bizarre, the bounces that were happening on the floor was bizarre, and the performance from a number of players on both teams was bizarre. On one hand you could say that the Gators were extremely unfocused and were possibly looking past this Missouri team, and you could be concerned with their poor game plan and execution. On the other hand, you could look at this game and say that it was simply the kind of strange game that occasionally happens in college basketball and Missouri simply played better for the larger portion of the game, and perhaps the Gators even were impressive in the fact that they made this a one-point game. Really, we’ll know the answer to this with how the Gators respond over the next few games starting with a home game with Texas.