If you put together a group of friends and went to your local gym for a game of basketball tomorrow, there’s a decent chance that you’d shoot better than the Gators did against Ole Miss on Monday night.
They were so bad offensively that “ice cold” doesn’t even feel like a strong enough description. They went 4-for-29 from beyond the arc (13.8 percent). Because they didn’t have much of a back-to-the-basket option with Colin Castleton out with a shoulder injury and CJ Felder out with an illness, they launched eight more shots from three-point range than from inside the arc.
Their horrendous night from downtown led to a 38 percent shooting game overall and a 70-54 loss to an Ole Miss team that entered the day with just one conference win.
The game played out similarly to Florida’s game against Vanderbilt on Saturday. Both teams struggled mightily to put the ball in the net in the first half, and they went into their locker rooms tied at 22.
“I thought we were in a really good place at halftime,” UF coach Mike White said. “I felt really good about our chances having not shot it well. Ole Miss made us a little stagnant there in the first half, of course. They extended their defense, especially mid-to-late first half. We thought we played a little bit more downhill and get it going offensively. Again, I didn’t hate our looks. We missed some that you’ve got to make on the road, of course, but, to hold Ole Miss to 22 in the first half, we were locked in defensively.”
Then, as was the case in the Vanderbilt game, only the home team sprang to life in the second half.
The Rebels (10-9, 2-5 SEC) shot a blistering 73.9 percent in the second half, which bumped them up to 52.1 percent for the game. The Gators (12-7, 3-4) shot moderately better in the second half at 42.9 percent, but that wasn’t anywhere near good enough.
“If we’re not making shots on offense, we can’t let that dictate our defense,” UF center Jason Jitoboh said. “We’ve just got to play harder on defense, and I have confidence in my teammates that we’re going to bounce back from the shooting slump.”
The game was tied at 32 with about 15 minutes to go in the game when Ole Miss took off on a 15-4 run.
Daeshun Ruffin got things started with a pair of free throws. UF’s Tyree Appleby then made a horrible lob pass near midcourt that resulted in a fastbreak layup for Jaemyn Brakefield. After another Ruffin free throw, Jitoboh temporarily stopped the momentum with an offensive rebound and a bucket to make it 37-34.
Then Ole Miss’ Sammy Hunter responded with a dunk at the other end. Matthew Murrell sank a couple of jump shots on their next two trips down the court, the latter of which was a three that extended the lead to 44-34 with 10:39 to go.
Florida’s Brandon McKissic made a shot, but Luis Rodriguez followed with a three to make it an 11-point game.
The Gators cut the lead down to seven with a little more than four minutes to go, but they never mounted a serious comeback attempt.
“We’ve just got to put a whole 40 minutes together,” Jitoboh says. “We’ve just got to come out in the second half stronger. And if they go on a run, we’ve just got to take that and throw our own punches.”
Ole Miss scored 48 points in the second half after scoring only 22 in the first half. To White, that is evidence of a lack of effort. He’s called out this team’s lack of mental toughness several times over the past month or so, and he did so again on Monday. They played hard defensively to start the game. Then, they got frustrated by their lack of offensive success and gave up way too many open looks at the other end.
“When you’re executing defensively, when you’re executing on the glass, when you’re taking good shots, you’re getting stops, sometimes it just goes in at a higher percentage,” White said. “That said, we also continue to – and hopefully we don’t do it again moving forward – but we give in at times when it’s not going in. We’re going to continue to get in the gym. We’re going to get in the gym [on Tuesday], but a lot of it is mental toughness. It just is.
“Guys with a lot of mental toughness, with courage, with confidence tend to shoot it better, but that same level of mental toughness in terms of struggling to make shots is also shown in our inability when things are going against us to get stops.”
Ruffin led the Rebels with 21 points and six assists, while Murrell pitched in 20 points and three assists. Nysier Brooks (11) and Rodriguez (10) joined them in double figures.
Jitoboh led UF with 12 points on a perfect 6-for-6 shooting with five rebounds. Appleby notched 11 points, four rebounds and four assists but also turned it over four times.
Anthony Duruji only played six minutes in the first half due to foul trouble but still managed to record nine points and two rebounds.
The Gators had a great chance to beat Ole Miss. All they needed was to have a mediocre or better offensive game. Instead, they launched brick after brick, gave in on defense and are now staring at a potential 3-5 start to SEC play with a road date at No. 18 Tennessee on the docket next.
“We continue to struggle with adversity,” White said. “Crowd’s yelling, we’re down, and we’re just not as sharp. It is not the sign of a great team, obviously. We’re going to keep pecking away at it.”