How Did The Gators Perform In The Clutch Time Of Games?

It’s not how you start, it’s how you finish.

This is an adage as old as time, applicable in many capacities but often used in a sports setting and it seems to be true in basketball more than in any other sport. When you watch a game it can often seem like teams are trading runs with one side catching fire and the other going ice cold only to change roles every couple of minutes. Then, the final TV timeout hits and it seems like the real game begins and whoever can out-execute the other side comes out victorious.

An intense final stretch of minutes is one of the things that make basketball amazing and at that point in the ballgame it can seem like every bucket is worth double. A made three can feel like a dagger and a bricked layup can make your stomach sink. In a lot of ways, the final minutes can feel like its own game within a game.

How exactly did the Gators fare when the game was on the line, when the lights were the brightest, and when the fans were the loudest?

With the help of my partners at Pivot Analysis I was able to filter through and locate every possession the Gators played in clutch time, both offensively and defensively, and in doing so can see just how they performed in the biggest moments of the biggest games. For the record, clutch time is defined as when there is less than 5 minutes remaining in the second half and the point spread is less than 10 points.

The Gators have had the reputation of a team that struggles in tight contests and their record in one-possession games under Mike White hasn’t always been great so seeing how the team performed in clutch time will give us a lot of information about the team. Execution or lack thereof in the final minutes speaks to the in-game coaching ability of the staff as well as the poise and confidence of the players on the court.

Florida ended up playing 88 offensive and 88 defensive possessions in clutch time this season, amounting to about 49 minutes. When you look back at the 2019-20 season, I’m sure you can remember a lot of these nail-biting moments.

In 88 clutch time offensive possessions they scored 120 points.

In 88 clutch time defensive possessions they allowed 93 points.

With an offensive rating of 137 and a defensive rating of 106 (ratings calculated by points per possession scored or allowed multiple by 100) that means the Gators were spectacular in clutch time this season. The clutch time net rating of +31 makes them one of the best teams in the nation in this category, something that I’m sure will surprise many of you as you read this. Going through the season you may not have really thought of the Gators as a team who played their best basketball late in games but the numbers show that they really pulled together in crunch time. Their numbers were definitely aided by frantic comebacks against Alabama, Georgia, and LSU, games that may have came to mind when thinking about late game heroics (all times the Gators came back from major deficits, over 20 points against both Alabama and Georgia), but remember that these clutch time stats would have only started registering once the Gators got those games within 10 points so their stellar play with their backs against the wall wasn’t even fully captured. Yes, the Gators had a few games where they were outplayed in the final possessions and lost (see Utah State, Connecticut, and Kentucky games) but as the numbers show, overall the Gators were excellent in clutch time.

Unsurprisingly it was Florida’s normal starting five of Andrew Nembhard, Noah Locke, Scottie Lewis, Keyontae Johnson, and Kerry Blackshear Jr. that got nearly all the clutch minutes. Because they were Florida’s most used overall lineup by a long shot and their sample size of minutes is so high we can see how they elevated their game in the clutch versus in the rest of games. “Regular” is minutes that didn’t classify as clutch, and I also removed garbage time from the sample size as well (garbage time is the opposite of clutch, where the spread is more than 10 points with less than 5 minutes remaining)

Offensive Rating

Regular: 118
Clutch: 133

Defensive Rating

Regular: 102
Clutch: 90

Net Rating

Regular: +16
Clutch: +43

As you can see, this grouping really raised their level of play in these clutch scenarios. Now, here are the same numbers for the team on the whole:

Offensive Rating

Regular: 112
Clutch: 137

Defensive Rating

Regular: 103
Clutch: 106

Net Rating

Regular: +9
Clutch: +31

Using the filters from Pivot Analysis to focus on only clutch time possessions we can also see some style of play elements that made clutch time so different than regular time for the Gators, and one thing jumps out right away.

In regular time the Gators took 37% of their shots from behind the arc and 44% of their shots at the rim, a fairly average breakdown for a modern college basketball team. However, their breakdown was much different with the game on the line. In clutch time they dipped down to taking only 30% of their shots from three and 54% of their shots at the rim. This change in offensive attack paid dividends for them as they were able to hit a ridiculous 75% of their shots at the rim in clutch time which made up for the fact that they only shot 30% from three in these minutes.

Going through the tape this change in style from the Gators looking to shoot jumpers in regular time to looking at the rim in clutch time was noticeable and quite frankly, pretty interesting. Obviously in clutch time defenses are going to tighten up and for that reason we saw it become a lot tougher for the Gators to get off open jumpers in the final minutes of games. Teams were wary of Noah Locke above the break and Keyontae Johnson in the corner and with the game on the line there were valiant closeouts that really bothered three-point attempts. As we have seen time and time again in basketball at multiple levels the long ball is never a consistent way to score, unlike shots at the rim.

Multiple studies have shown that shots in close are a far more consistent way to score in basketball and if you live in the paint you’re likely not going to run hot and cold and the Gators showed that they were a consistent clutch time offensive team because they made it a focus to get shots at the rim. Florida’s ability to get the ball in close also allowed them to get to the free throw line which is the most efficient way to score in all of basketball. Their free throw rate jumped a comical amount from 24.6% to 56.7% from regular time to clutch time and when they got to the charity stripe they were able to get easy points.

There is another reason Florida was able to score so well at the end of close games and it was the ability to convert in what’s considered a dying element of basketball—the midrange. “Midrange” is a dirty word in some basketball circles, or if nothing else at least a relic of basketball that has come and passed in favor of more efficient shot selection. Truthfully, in a lot of contexts the midrange doesn’t below. However, like we discussed earlier, basketball in the final minutes of a tight game is different from the other 35 minutes. Defenses tighten up and it becomes a lot harder to get a coveted 3-point shot (as we’ve seen with the Gators who struggled to shoot it at the end of games) and at times the refs are going to swallow their whistle making it tougher to score at the rim. What’s left? The midrange. And sometimes, you’ve got to take what the defense is giving you. Rather bizarrely, the Gators were one of the best teams in the country in jump shots between 13-17 feet last season led by Noah Locke and Andrew Nembhard who excelled with these shots. Their mastery in the midrange came through big time in a number of key scenarios as the Gators shot 45% from the midrange in clutch time, a number that is 8% above the national average in midrange efficiency.

When it came to clutch time defense for the Gators you saw them scratch and claw, playing with a ton of energy and passion as they emptied the tank doing whatever they could to win. This often made for some scrambled basketball but they had success even though they got away from some of their defensive philosophies. If you ask the coaching staff what one of the pillars of their defense is, its limiting three-point attempts, especially off the catch. They were willing to chase players off the line and trust the help behind them, often allowing a good bulk of shots at the rim as a result of eliminating threes. This was actually flipped in clutch time where you saw the Gators playing a lot tighter to their own rim and condensing the defense, something that likely wasn’t in the game plan but something that worked. The opposing field goal percentage at the rim dropped from 53% in regular time to 47% in clutch time as you could see wing players selling out to help the bigs protect the paint. Against the coach’s regular defensive philosophy this meant giving up more threes and they went from 35% of their opponents shots coming from three in regular time to 39% of them in the clutch. However, Florida’s three-point defense improved from 33% in regular time to 27% in clutch time. That would suggest an element of luck as teams took a serious dip in their conversion of threes but looking through the film of these possessions the Gators did have some inspired closeouts to contest shooters, even if the shot was relatively open.

Florida’s excellence in the clutch says a couple of things. First of all, it speaks to the team’s passion for the game and their dogged desire to win. Effort and will to win isn’t everything and quite frankly is probably overrated a lot of the time but make no mistake, for a team to consistently outperform their opponent in clutch time the Gators had to have had an admirable level of competitiveness. It also speaks positively about the coaching as the staff had the team ready for special situations at the end of games and were also able to keep the team motivated and focused in the most important possessions of the game. The Gators were 13th amongst high major teams in after time out offense and they got some key baskets when the coaches were able to draw up a play and that’s often one of the measures of good coaching.

Lastly, it speaks to this—Florida didn’t lose games this year because of what they did at the end of games, it was what they did in the middle of them. In the past few seasons the Gators struggled at the end of games and had a reputation as a team that couldn’t convert when they desperately needed it but this year it’s a different story. Florida often bested their opponents in the final minutes of games but it was a 5 minute scoring drought here or a 17-3 run by the other team there that really sunk them, and had they just been able to keep the game close up until the end their superior clutch time play likely would have gotten them the victory. Seeing how well the team performed in the money minutes, the important possessions at the end of tight games, you would have thought their season would have gone a lot better. Historically it’s the teams that execute in the clutch that win games but for the Gators it was often dry spells earlier in the second half that made it that their clutch time dominance wasn’t enough to make up for it. The numbers that point to Florida being so good in the final five minutes show that if they could have just eliminated some of the dry spells their record would have looked much different.

With the Gators bringing back a lot of the same pieces from this team we should expect them to be great in the clutch once again in 2020-21. This was an incredibly young group last still found a way to perform in big moments which is something usually reserved for veteran teams and now that most of the pieces are back we should see even more heroics at the end of close games.

Eric Fawcett
Eric is a basketball coach and writer from Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. His work has been found at NBA international properties, ESPN, Bleacher Report, CBS Sports, Lindy's and others. He loves zone defenses, the extra pass, and a 30 second shot clock. Growing up in Canada, an American channel showing SEC basketball games was his first exposure to Gator hoops, and he has been hooked ever since. You can follow him on Twitter at @ericfawcett_.