Before the basketball season started we did a Q&A with Gator Country subscribers and it was so successful we decided to do it again now that the non-conference portion of the season has concluded.
If you’re a Gator Country member who wants a question answered, you can submit it on the forum. And if you’re not a member, now is a great time to join!
We already did part one of this Q&A, but there were so many questions we had to do (at least) one more part!
Here we go!
Donnell: Based on the early season struggles and the fact that the staff only signed one player in the Fall, do you expect an aggressive spring recruiting period(H.S./JUCO and Portal). Also, do you think needs have changed(maybe PG)?
Whenever you submit a question Donnell, I’m going to take time to thank you for all you contribute to the boards so let’s start with that!
The Gators are going to be very aggressive in the 2024 class. They largely punted on the 2023 class (a decision I largely agree with–they would be fighting an uphill battle trying to recruit these kids so late in the process) and have fully committed to going right to 2024 looking for the best players possible. Will they go after some uncommitted 2023 kids later in the spring? Possibly. Perhaps it will look like the Riley Kugel situation where a coach that a kid committed to gets fired and ends up on the market again. Things move so quickly these days that I wouldn’t be surprised at all if another top-50 kid unexpectedly becomes available and that the Gators try to pounce.
I personally would be pretty surprised to see the Gators go after a JUCO player as I don’t think it has fit the philosophy of talent acquisition this staff has shown. They want portal players or top high school recruits, and I’m not sure they’re looking at JUCO players who would either be development pieces or guys that could plug a hole and be a veteran off the bench.
Have their needs changed? I don’t really think so. I still the players that we expected would be gone before the season are still the players I expect to be gone, and I think the players that we expect to return have been about what we expected them to be before the season, so I don’t think there would be a big reevaluation of the kinds of players the staff thinks they need. It’s pretty clear they are looking for big men, and it’s pretty clear they are looking for a point guard.
Jcmiller910: Why does Porter Moser own us? The dude must lick his chops every time UF shows up on his schedule!
For the non-basketball diehards reading this I’ll give some backstory–Porter Moser is currently the head coach at Oklahoma and was previously at Loyola-Chicago where he took them to a shocking Final Four.
When at Loyola-Chicago he took the Ramblers to Gainesville where they shocked the Gators, leading the entire game and getting an upset win. Moser then took the job at Oklahoma last year and despite not having a lot of talent in the transition year handled the Gators fine, and then this past week the Sooners once again took down the Gators while leading for much of the game.
Long time Gator Country members who read the forums will know that I am probably the biggest Porter Moser fan there is. I think he is a brilliant schematic mind on both sides of the floor and I think he gets every drop of talent out of his teams, perhaps almost to a fault. I think he has lacked when it comes to recruiting, and I honestly wonder if part of it is the confidence he has in taking players that aren’t all that talented and coaching them up to beat better teams…as we have seen with the Gators the last two years.
Why has Porter Moser owned the Gators? Simply put, I think he is one of the best X’s and O’s coaches in the country. I’m not trying to talk ill of a coach that’s no longer at Florida, but I do not put Mike White in the category of top schematic coaches in the country. At this moment, I would also not put Todd Golden in that category.
More specifically, Moser has always had excellent gap control when it comes to helping on Florida dribble drives and pick and rolls, and he has also had an excellent strategy of sending delayed double teams on Colin Castleton the last two seasons which has proven to be very effective.
Will great coaching beat talent every time? No, but we have seen that sometimes it does, as on three separate occasions Moser has taken significantly less talented players and played the Gators and won with relative ease.
This is important to note as Oklahoma comes to the SEC as the Gators will have to contend with his brilliant basketball mind a whole bunch more in the future.
TJGators: Would Jones or Jitoboh get minutes on any other SEC team?
Jason Jitoboh would definitely get backup center minutes on most SEC teams just because that size is hard to replicate. I don’t think he would play significant minutes on many teams in the league, but I think you could pencil him for 8-12 minutes on probably 8-9 teams in the league.
I truly think Myreon Jones would struggle to get minutes on most teams in the league, and quite frankly I think he should struggle to get minutes on the Gators, though Golden feels differently and likes having him out there as a guy to come off the bench and handle the ball.
Both players have left something to be desired, but the difference between the two is the other options the Gators have available. I love Jitoboh and cheer hard for him, but the 6’11”, 300 pound center just isn’t a style of player that really works for me right now and I think when you look across the high major level you see that it’s difficult for that kind of player to be effective. However, the Gators don’t really have many other backup center options–I mean, I would love Felder in that role, but the Gators have shown they don’t feel the same way.
When it comes to Myreon Jones, I would like to see more minutes from Trey Bonham, Kowacie Reeves, Riley Kugel, and/or Niels Lane in place of him right now. So, while I understand having to ride with Jitoboh to some extent, I don’t feel that Jones is as much of a necessity.
67walkon: How do we avoid the scoring droughts that plagued us in the past?
To get out of some of the droughts Florida has had I think they need to have something in the arsenal that isn’t as predictable as their regular continuity ball screen offense. I already talked about the continuity ball screen offense in the previous Q&A so I won’t get into the technical side of it here, but I will remind everyone that the continuity ball screen is fairly predictable. So, when Florida gets into droughts, it can feel a little bit uninspiring to see them go to an offense that the defense knows is coming and has already shown they can guard. As the season goes on I’m sure we’ll start to see some variation in the offense and that’s what the Gators could really use to avoid these scoring droughts. They need an off-speed pitch to pair with their fastball, especially when opponents have shown they can sit on that fastball pretty effectively.
Thanks everyone, happy holidays!