Playing a pesky Grambling State team that came within inches of beating Ole Miss just days prior the Florida Gators came in focused and energetic and came away with a decisive 86-61 win. Grambling State is known for their ability to hang with high-major competition and they boast talent, athleticism, and size, but you wouldn’t know it with how much the Gators got down to business and controlled action from the opening tip. With the win the Gators improve to a perfect 3-0 on the season and now will shift their focus to a rivalry game with Florida State, a team who has had struggles with Northern Kentucky and Rice to begin the season.
Dominant Defense
This Florida roster was built around shifting the narrative entirely from the year before where they couldn’t get a stop and playing like a team that can suffocate their opponent and that’s exactly what they did against Grambling State, holding the Tigers to 61 points on 43% from the field. Florida is playing an aggressive brand of defense that sees them heavily protecting the paint and scrambling out to three-point shooters as required and the scheme was excellent on Monday. Perhaps the most telling stat was the fact the Gators forced 18 turnovers, completely keeping the Tigers off balance as they struggled to get into their actions and perform any actions to threaten the defense. With a few talented individual scorers like Kintavious Dozier and Antwan Burnett the Tigers were able to put some points on the board, but when they did it seemed like they were pushing a boulder up a mountain and putting in monstrous amounts of work to create a single bucket, and it wasn’t sustainable for fourty minutes. This game was a glimpse at how the Gators want to play, and should be encouraging to the roster moving forward.
Moving The Ball
Grambling State is an excellent defensive team and they did give the Gators some issues in the half court both in their man to man and zone defensive scheme. Overall the Gators were able to put up a respectable point total but it was largely due to their transition scoring off turnovers which covered up some issues in the halfcourt. While things weren’t exactly pretty, one thing that was encouraging was the unselfishness the team played with and how willing players were to give up a shot to give an extra pass to a teammate. Functionally Florida played 8 players on Monday (though a bunch more got in with a minute remaining), and each of those 8 players averaged between 8 and 14 points which is just what the coaching staff wants to see. This even spread of production speaks to how well the team was sharing the ball, and no play embodied this as much as a bucket in the second half where off a turnover Will Richard had a chance to throw down an uncontested dunk. Instead of getting the easy two points for himself, he turned and looked around to see which teammates were around and dropped the ball off for Rueben Chinyelu who instead was able to get the free points.
Finishing Plays
Florida’s scoring was well spread out but there was a leader with 14 points–Rueben Chinyelu. Not a big scorer by any means, this was somewhat unexpected but it was the result of an unselfish Florida offense that got Grambling State scrambling and when they got to scrambling it was often Chinyelu who was left open underneath the rim and nearly all of his points came off uncontested dunks. Right now Chinyelu, who is still relatively new to the game, is not the most confident on the offensive side of the floor and games like this where he is spoonfed buckets from his teammates and gets to see the ball go through the rim will be huge for his development. With the 14 points he matches his career high which he set last year as a freshman against, shockingly–Grambling State.
Final Thoughts
This was an encouraging game for the Gators who got to showcase what they’re looking for their identity to be–a team that hangs their hat on defense, creates turnovers that turn into offense on the other end, and is unselfish and willing to make the extra pass. If you’re not someone who follows much of college basketball outside of the SEC you might look at Grambling State as just another buy game opponent, but it’s important to note that the Tigers are an excellent team who was leading against Ole Miss for much of that game just a few games prior, so the Gators were able to assert their will against a very good program. Florida will now get to see Florida State in a rivalry game, though a rivalry the Gators have dominated recently.