What could have been an exciting weekend for the Gators at the PK85 in Portland turned out to be a disappointment with a 1-2 showing including a blowout loss to West Virginia, and they’ll now be back to the drawing board to clean up things on both sides of the basketball.
That starts on Wednesday as the Gators (4-3) will take on the Florida A&M Rattlers (1-4).
From a Gators standpoint, this could be just what the doctor ordered. According to KenPom the Rattlers are the 359th best team in the country–and that’s out of 363 teams. While they sit at 1-4, their only win was against a non-d1 opponent in Albany State, a game that they almost lost but were able to pull out in overtime.
As is the case with most teams in the Southwestern Athletic Conference the Rattlers fund a lot of their basketball operations by playing buy games in non-conference play so they have exclusively played on the road and will exclusively play their non-conference games on the road with the exception of another non-d1 opponent in Edward Waters. So far the Rattlers have losses to Oregon, Portland, and Oregon State, a road trip they made to the pacific northwest, as well as a loss to Miami. Against Oregon State, a common opponent they have with the Gators, they lost 60-43.
For a Florida team that probably needs a comfortable win to start building up their confidence this could be just what they need, though it’s a game where the final score probably doesn’t matter as much as how the Gators play. They need to shore things up on the defensive end and build chemistry on the offensive end as both sides of the floor showed a need for improvement against West Virginia.
Florida’s defense will have a chance to build confidence as the Rattlers have the 362nd ranked offense in the country and have struggled to get anything going from a scoring standpoint so far this season. They don’t have interior threats that can punish a defense on the inside, and they have struggled to shoot the ball which has allowed opponents to pack the paint and force them to take outside shots.
Defensively the Rattlers are slightly better, ranked 305th, and they know their shortcomings and will try to make up for it by being aggressive and trying to force turnovers. They’ll mix in some pressing and extended defense as they know that they lack the size and athleticism to guard high major teams in the halfcourt.
Florida A&M is a score by committee offense without a key option that they play through a ton but arguably their best player so far this season has been Byron Smith, a junior from Palatka, Florida who started his career at Southeastern Louisiana before transferring to Florida A&M. The 6’2” guard is averaging 8.4 points and 2.4 assists per game and is often the leader who gets his teammates to spots so they can get into their offensive sets.
A fellow 6’2” junior guard who has also been important to the Rattlers is junior Jordan Tillmon who showed a bit of his scoring punch with 16 points against Portland 12 points against Oregon State. He’s a tough nosed guard who is constantly trying to get into the paint, and when the offense breaks down for the Rattlers he’s the guy that often has the ball in his hands in a situation to create.
On the inside the Rattlers roll out 6’9”, 210 pound Chase Barrs and 6’7”, 205 pound Peyton Williams, both who aren’t particularly physically imposing. Florida has major issues with the size and physicality of both Xavier and West Virginia’s frontcourt and it took the Gators out of rhythm offensively and didn’t allow Colin Castleton to get going but this should be a chance for a get right game that hopefully gets his mojo back.
While the Gators need to treat every opponent with respect, this certainly looks like a game where they don’t need to worry as much about a scout and taking away their opponent’s weaknesses and instead need to focus on themselves and how they can clean up their defensive rotations and get into the flow of their offense on the other end. This is a game where they probably would have the opportunity to play poorly and still win, but if that happens it would not be a positive outcome.
A storyline to watch from a Florida standpoint will be the usage of Kowacie Reeves who hardly played in Portland, only getting in for a couple of minutes during garbage time. Reeves started the season as a starter but has fallen out of favor, leading to him being an afterthought in some of the Gators’ biggest games of the season so far. The Gators missed his length and shotmaking against West Virginia, though clearly he is not playing up to the standard in some other ways that is keeping the coaching staff from thinking he can be a positive contributor.
This is the time of the season for the Gators to address issues and start to build towards conference play and their time for correction starts on Wednesday against Florida A&M.