Gators Dominant At Home To Hold Off Lowly Vanderbilt

“We want Klatsky” chants rained down from the O’Dome faithful with several minutes left on the clock which always signifies a blowout win in Gainesville and that’s exactly what occurred as the Florida Gators (19-8, 9-5 SEC) controlled the Vanderbilt Commodores (7-20, 2-12 SEC) from the opening tip for a smooth 77-64 win. Throughout the first half the Gators steadily grew their lead and went into the break up 35-20 and from there it was all about maintaining. Vanderbilt tried to get back into the game with a frantic press and some well-drawn up sets for three but the Gators never broke, taking care of business on their home floor and avoiding what would have been a bad loss at home. Unselfish play from the Gators was a story throughout as they shared the ball and didn’t hunt stats with 17 assists as a team on 28 made field goals. Zyon Pullin had a lengthy streak end as for the first time as a Gator he didn’t score double digits–putting up only 2 points. However, that isn’t to suggest he was playing poorly–it was more of a focus on the fact that he was looking to get his teammates involved in a well-balanced attack. A drama-free Saturday afternoon was exactly what the Gators were looking for and they’ll be quite happy with just how things shook out.

Leading The Way

When you look at Will Richard’s stat lines from game to game it seems like his point totals always seem to correlate with how the Gators’ offense is doing. If he scores a lot it usually means the Gators are playing well, and if he’s quieter–it probably means they’re getting stuck. Well, against Vanderbilt that theory held up as he led Florida with 21 points, 4 rebounds, and 3 assists going 5-9 from deep, punctuating what was a great offensive game for the Gators overall. When Richard’s threes are falling there isn’t a much prettier stroke in all of basketball and every time he let it fly on Saturday there was a feeling it was going in. Not only was he putting up points but he also had some nice assists out of pick and roll which hasn’t often been his role in the offense but was one he was happy to take on. As the season comes down the home stretch you can continue to hope for big games from Richard as he always seems to be the gauge of how Florida’s offense is going.

Creating Turnovers

Defense hasn’t exactly been a stretch of the Gators this season and one of the reasons why they haven’t been great on that end is the fact that they aren’t particularly disruptive. In fairness their conservative defensive scheme isn’t meant to be all that disruptive, but coming into Saturday’s game 316th in the country in defensive turnover percentage they can often be an easy team to play against. Vanderbilt certainly didn’t find them easy to play against as they coughed the ball up 13 times and while some of those were mental errors when they threw the ball out of bounds without much pressure, you can probably chalk up the mental fatigue to having to deal with the Gators playing hard within their defense scheme. The Gators are excellent in transition but don’t often get the chance to run out after steals because they don’t get many but against the Commodores they were able to get some easy ones off the break after turnovers and it made their offense even more potent. With a lot of length on the floor the Gators have the potential to be a team that cranks up the defensive intensity a little bit more and it will be interesting to see if they play anymore aggressive the rest of the season. 

Rotation Changes

Against Alabama Riley Kugel was somewhat of an afterthought playing only 3 minutes. Against Vanderbilt you’d think he’d have the chance at a bounce back but that wasn’t the case as he ended up on the floor for only 6 minutes and was essentially out of the rotation by the second half. When he was in the game he had a nice backdoor cut for a layup but also had a missed defensive rotation and a sloppy turnover and when that happened it appeared his afternoon was over. A player who entered the season expected to be a leader now appears to be largely out of the rotation and on one hand that could be a concern but on the other hand–others are stepping up. Richard had an excellent game as previously mentioned, and Abderdeen brought the kind of defensive focus Golden was looking for from a guard off the bench. With Thomas Haugh also continuing to play more minutes we could also see him get a look at small forward, something that was teased earlier in the offseason. 

Final Thoughts

Throughout the non-conference portion of the season the Gators did an excellent job of taking care of buy-game opponents and leaving no doubt, dominating those games and avoiding bad losses. Well, functionally–Vanderbilt at home is a buy game. They’re 209th in KenPom, making them a worse team than Quinnipiac, Merrimack, and East Carolina who the Gators already handled easily. With the pressure on to avoid a bad loss the Gators played free and relaxed and jumped out to an early lead which is exactly what you need in games like this and never relented and you love to see that kind of focus this late in the season. Florida will need to bring that focus again Wednesday when they play Missouri, a team that is yet to win an SEC game and has lost 17 of their last 18 games going all the way back to December 9th.