Identifying Rest Advantage For Florida Basketball In 2019-20 Season

Discussing the importance of rest to a basketball team is an interesting practice because while most people, especially in modern basketball operations, agree that it’s of major importance it can be difficult to quantify what effect it has.

I wrote about the role rest played in Florida basketball last season here. If you haven’t read it you can go and give it glance now but most of the relevant information from that piece will be re-circulated in this article.

Essentially, there are numbers that point to the fact that rest played a fairly major factor in Florida’s style of play last season. For starters, here are the number of possessions Florida averaged in games sorted by number of rest days.

0-1 Rest Days

Average Offensive Possessions: 61

2 Rest Days

Average Offensive Possessions: 62

3 Rest Days

Average Offensive Possessions: 64

5+ Rest Days

Average Offensive Possessions: 68

As you can see, the more rest that Florida got the faster they were able to play. For a Gators’ team that played slower than Coach White wanted last year you can see instantly where rest played a role. Where you see this even more is in the number of transition shots the Gators took depending on rest days.

0-1 Rest Days

Average Transition Opportunities: 6

2 Rest Days

Average Transition Opportunities: 8

3 Rest Days

Average Transition Opportunities: 10

5+ Rest Days

Average Transition Opportunities: 14

Transition shots are high-value possessions and the fact that short rest made the Gators less able to get out and run shows the value of rest days and what implications the schedule had for the Gators.

Another element of rest I took a look at what rest advantage. Rest advantage is simply looking at what team had more days of rest between two opponents. In the SEC teams often have the same number of rest days so obviously no team has the advantage but there are still several times throughout the schedule that a team gets an extra day here or there.

Why does this matter? Well, as a matter of fact, the Gators were winless last year when they had a rest disadvantage.

They unfortunately didn’t really take care of business when they had a rest advantage by only going .500 in games where they had the rest advantage but it obviously really hurt them when they were the team on the short end of rest.

Considering Florida’s winless record when faced with a rest disadvantage looking ahead to this year’s schedule and seeing how rest days will fall seemed to be a worthy endeavor, starting with the non-conference games here:

Florida Rest Advantage

Florida State (Home)
Butler (Road)
Providence (Neutral)
Utah State (Neutral)

Florida Rest Disadvantage

Connecticut (Road)
Baylor (Home)

(A note—I didn’t include the low and mid-majors on Florida’s schedule except for Utah State. In those contests rest advantage hopefully shouldn’t play a role so I didn’t want those games skewing the data for where it really matters and that’s against the quality opponents)

There is a chance this was some savvy scheduling work by the Gators but even if it was just a coincidence but whatever the case this is awfully good for them. Factoring in rest should be an element of crafting a non-conference schedule and this one looks to break positively for the Gators. Florida has control when it comes to their non-conference slate but let’s take a look at the SEC schedule where the Gators have to take what’s given to them. Last year the league wasn’t kind to the Gators giving them more rest disadvantages than advantages, including rest disadvantages in both games against Kentucky (just saying). Let’s see if Florida got dealt a better hand this time around.

Rest Advantage

Alabama (Home)
Auburn (Home)
Vanderbilt (Road)

Rest Disadvantage

South Carolina (Road)
Vanderbilt (Home)
Kentucky (Road)

Luckily for the Gators they weren’t given too many rest disadvantages in league play.

And hey, color me shocked that Kentucky was given home court and a rest advantage in the last game of the league schedule that could very well decide the regular season title between the Gators and Wildcats.

Generally speaking this broke decently well for the Gators, other than in that final matchup with Kentucky as South Carolina and Vanderbilt aren’t looking to be particularly good this year and a rest disadvantage to them shouldn’t be as devastating as it would be if it were to some of the top teams in the league. The league office is always looking at making the schedule as balanced as possible, a task probably functionally impossible to do properly, but this one works out quite well.

Florida should also be a bit more immune to fatigue issues this year due to a deeper lineup than they had last season. Not only should that limit the nights that the Gators come out flat but they should be able to play with a tempo that more correlates to what Coach White is trying to accomplish. Their deeper, more athletic roster that also has a schedule conducive to recovery is just another element that points to the Gators looking poised for a successful season.

While most of what I’ve been discussing relates to physical rest the mental rest players get from additional rest is also important. In a league like the SEC preparation for each game is expansive and keeping track of offensive sets, defensive schemes, and scouting reports for the opposition is a lot, especially for the younger Gators who haven’t experienced this level of basketball before. For them, having extra days to recharge and focus for a game could have definite positive outcomes.

For a Florida team with so much talent this season rest might not play as much of a role as it has in past seasons but looking at last year it seems to have far more of an effect than you might think and therefore it’s worth looking at moving forward. Obviously the Gators have no role in setting their SEC schedule but when it comes to non-conference scheduling doing what you can to make sure you’re on the right side of rest in the matchup could have big implications. Not only could it matter when it comes to who wins and who loses but in a NET Ranking world where your margin of victory and efficiency numbers count towards your standing and ultimately what seed you might end up with in the Big Dance making sure you are never in a position to come out flat is big.

Now that we know which games have one team seeing a rest advantage we’ll be able to see if it plays a role. Until then, go Gators!

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_.