Eight college basketball teams traveled to Portland Oregon to partake in the Phil Knight Invitational this past weekend. The Gators went 1-2 in three games, finishing in sixth place.
Gator Country provides a recap of Florida’s weekend.
FLORIDA VS XAVIER
The Gators got things going on Thanksgiving Day, facing off against Xavier in one of the more competitive games of the tournament. This game was tight for the entire contest, but Xavier pulled away in the final few minutes, winning 90-83 and sending UF to the losers’ bracket.
Xavier is a good basketball team. They are just 4-3 on the season, but they’ve had a two-point loss to #10 Indiana, a seven-point loss to #17 Duke, and a four-point loss to #14 Gonzaga.
“First of all, we had a couple moments where we let them off the hook,” head coach Todd Golden said after the game. “At the end of the first half, I’ve got to be able to do a better job of communicating to my team that I want a timeout. That cost us. We could’ve gone into halftime with the lead, and we went in down four, which was really disappointing. It kind of took some wind out of our sails. In the second half, we had a couple breakaway opportunities, a missed dunk that ended up being three at the other end, a missed transition layup that ended up being three at the other end. Against a really good team like Xavier, you can’t have those things happen, right? So, other than some interesting plays like that, I thought it was a pretty evenly played game. They had their moments, we had ours.”
The main storyline for Florida was that Junior guard Trey Bonham made his first career start for the Gators and led the team with a season-high 23 points.
“As you know from being at our game last Friday night, he provided a big spark in the second half, and I thought he was playing with confidence in the first half before that,” Golden said. “That was the guy that we were kind of expecting to get from VMI, and we thought allowing him to build off that performance last Friday, put him in the starting lineup, it would take some pressure off Kyle [Lofton], allow us to put more pressure at the top of the defense. I’m not sure he was great defensively tonight – I’ll have to go back and watch – but he was obviously fantastic offensively and did a really good job scoring the basketball.”
Bonham says the Gators didn’t get enough stops against a good Xavier team.
“We weren’t getting enough stops the whole game,” Bonham said.” Offensively, I thought we took care of the ball as a team. That was a great team, and we didn’t get the shots that we wanted.”
“I feel like we’re a good team,” Bonham said. “ We feel like we could’ve and should’ve won that game. We’ve got a lot of areas to improve, so once we hit our peak and once we get together as a team we’re going to be great.”
FLORIDA VS OREGON STATE
The next game for Florida was on Friday night against Oregon State. Todd Golden’s squad found a much needed win, defeating the Beavers 81 to 68 in dominating fashion. The Gators jumped out to an early lead and never looked back, controlling the game for 40 minutes. Florida opened the game on a 9-0 run with stops of the first four possessions of the game (two turnovers forced). The Gators ultimately jumped out to a 17-2 start over the first 6:08. Trey Bonham led Florida’s attack once again with 19 points to go along with three assists and no turnovers.
The Beavers held Duke to just 27% from the field a day before, which was not the case on Friday night as Florida shot 56% from the field and 38% from three-point range.
“It was a concern of mine, obviously, coming into the game. They were fantastic defensively yesterday,” Golden said after the victory. “ It started with stops on the defensive end. I thought we got some run-outs early, which kind of took the lid off the rim. We saw our first couple perimeter shots go in, which I thought bred confidence within our club. This was our best offensive game of the year. We were 52 [percent] from the field, 42 from three, 86 from the line. Every run they went on – and they went on some runs, they made their last four threes of the first half – we had an answer for it. … I’m starting to see certain guys really get comfortable. The young man that was sitting next to me [Trey Bonham] is one of them. He’s had an incredible last five halves of games. He’s just a fantastic scorer, playmaker, 19 points, three assists, no turnovers tonight.”
Trey Bonham says the key to the victory was the fast start for Florida.
“I think it was just our mindset coming into the game,” Bonham said. “We knew we wanted to start off fast, throw the first punch. So just having that mindset, I think it just transitioned to the court – hit shots early, got stops early.”
Will Richard is quietly putting together a very impressive start to the season. Richard continued his consistent scoring, adding 13 points on just five field goal attempts. Richard has scored at least 13 points in all six games this season and is the team’s second-leading scorer (14.5 ppg). Richard’s identity is efficiency through Florida’s first seven games. Watching him take a bad or inefficient shot is a rare sight.
“He’s a super-winning player,” Golden said of Richard. “He’s an incredibly intelligent young man, a guy that can pick up schemes and defensive coverages really well. He’s super-tough, which is something I really like as a coach. … He doesn’t run from contact. He likes to get in there and mix it up. He does a great job on the glass. I’m just really happy we have him on our side.”
The Gators have struggled to find help off the bench to start the season, but Riley Kugel has helped in that area as of late. Kugel posted his second straight double-digit scoring game off the bench, chipping in 10 points off the bench. Kugel’s athletic ability is undeniable, but he’s struggled to finish around the rim early in his Gators career. The ceiling is high for the true freshman.
FLORIDA VS WEST VIRGINIA
Florida had the chance to claim 5th place in the tournament and finish with a respectable 2-1 record in Portland, but things didn’t go Florida’s way in their final game. West Virginia’s five starting seniors led them to a 84 to 55 win over the Gators. Colin Castleton got into foul trouble early on, logging just 18 minutes in the game. Castleton is the identity of this Gators basketball team as Florida hasn’t found a way to be successful with him off the court.
“I thought we did a really poor job of dealing with adversity in the first half,” Golden said after the loss. “ There could’ve been a couple calls that went against us that could’ve gone our way and maybe would’ve changed things, but we did a very poor job of handling that adversity and fighting through it. I thought we did a good job at the end of the first half of hanging on and cutting that thing down to eight where I thought we’d have a good shot to get back into it at the beginning of the second half. It looked like Colin was really out of sorts and didn’t give us a lot after sitting on the bench for a while, then they got off to a 20 to two run to start the second half, and we just weren’t able to recover.”
“It was a difficult game. I thought it was very physical on both ends,” Golden said. “Unfortunately, it was our two bigs that were paying the price in terms of getting into foul trouble. Clearly, it took us out of a rhythm. Both those guys weren’t able to play like themselves. Jason did a decent job of coming back in the second half and putting some [shots] in, but Colin’s really important to us and we need him on the floor to be successful. We also need him to be able to battle through foul trouble and play better through adversity.”
Florida now sits at 4-3 on the season and will look to work through some early season struggles on Wednesday night against Florida A&M.