Certainly the understatement of this basketball season would be to call Florida’s next two games critical. They’re all critical in the Southeastern Conference but for a team that is so close to sealing up a tenth straight invite to the big dance, these next two games take on extra significance.
The Gators are 19-7 overall, 6-5 in the SEC East and their chances of a first round day off at the SEC Tournament took a serious hit Saturday with that 61-58 loss to Vanderbilt in Nashville. Florida trails Vandy by a game and Kentucky by two in that bid to take a day one break. Tennessee, 23-2 overall and 10-1 in the SEC, would have to take a serious nosedive to fall out of first place which means it is a three-team race for the bye. Give the edge to Vanderbilt with three of its five remaining games in Memorial Gym, which might be the toughest home court advantage in the league this year.
With five games remaining on the schedule, the Gators first of all have to take care of business Wednesday night when South Carolina (12-12, 4-6 SEC East) comes calling at the Stephen C. O’Connell Center. Florida has already eked out a win in Columbia but the Gamecocks have proven they can win in some tough SEC environments with wins at Arkansas and at Ole Miss Saturday night.
If the Gators can get past South Carolina, the next challenge is a road trip to Athens to face a Georgia team that is 11-3 at Stegman Coliseum. Georgia put the fear of God in Tennessee in Athens Saturday before falling in the last seconds.
Should the Gators win the next two games, they would be 8-5 in the league and assured of a break-even record in the league. That would take a good bit of the pressure off the final three games, back-to-back home games with divisional leaders Mississippi State (17-7, 8-2 SEC West) and Tennessee at home and a season-ending road trip to Lexington to face Kentucky. That is a very difficult closing stretch but getting one win in three games is quite do-able if the Gators play defense the way they did Saturday against Vanderbilt.
While it would be difficult for the selection committee to leave the Gators out of the NCAA Tournament with a tenth straight season of better than 20 wins and break even in the league following back-to-back national championships, getting a ninth win in SEC play would go a long way toward assuring Florida of a tenth straight year in the tournament. At 8-8, the Gators probably make the NCAA tournament although the committee might want to see Florida win at least one game in the SEC Tournament. At 9-7, the Gators would almost certainly get in even without an SEC Tournament win. If the Gators don’t break even in the league, probably the only way they could get in would be to make it to the SEC Tournament finals.
The Gators seemed destined to get to nine wins and perhaps 10 or possibly 11 in SEC play a couple of weeks ago, but that was before a mysterious shooting slump took hold of the team and rendered them ineffective from the three-point line. They were at their worst Saturday against Vandy — 1-15 — when even a 20 percent outing would have won the game. In their last five games, the Gators are a combined 26-111 or 23.4 percent.
In non-conference games, the Gators are shooting 49 percent overall from the field, but in conference games, they are hitting only 45.9 percent. Among Florida’s starters, only Marreese Speights (61.3 percent) is shooting better than 50 percent from the field. Among the starters, only Jai Lucas (29-64, 45.3 percent) is shooting above 40 percent from the three-point line.
If the Gators can get any kind of shooting from the outside and the same kind of three-point defense they showed against Vanderbilt (held the SEC’s leading three-point shooting team to 8-27 or 29.6 percent), they have a chance to win all five of their remaining games. Winning five would be much to ask of this young bunch that is still trying to figure things out, but three out of five would be a pleasant beginning and it would present some rather nice consequences.
Getting those three wins is a tall order if the shooting doesn’t come around or if the defense the Gators played against Vandy is a one-game aberration. You have to believe that at some point shots will start to drop again since Walter Hodge proved himself as a three-point shooter last year and Nick Calathes, Chandler Parsons and Dan Werner were all outstanding three-point shooters in high school.
Defensively, there was far greater effort shown against Vandy than in any recent SEC games and given the closeness of the game, you have to figure the team will use that as a springboard to improved play the rest of the year. Getting a few extra stops and making two or three more three-pointers a game could make a world of difference for the Gators. If they can pull that off, they should get to nine wins and ensure themselves of the NCAA Tournament berth.
GATOR NOTES: Calathes continues to lead the SEC in assists at 6.1 per game. He’s third in the league in assist to turnover ration (2.06 assists to every turnover). Calathes leads the Gators and ranks 15th in the league in scoring at 15.3 per game. Calathes leads the Gators and is eighth in the SEC in free throw shooting (74.3 percent). He is second in the league in free throw attempts with 148. Only Vandy’s A.J. Ogilvy (180) has shot more free throws … Speights (61.3 percent) is third in the league in shooting percentage and he’s fifth in rebounding (7.7 per game). Werner is 11th in the league in rebounding (6.8 per game) … There have been only 43 free throws combined by the Gators and opponents in the last two games. Against LSU there were only 20 free throws in the game (Florida shot only five) and against Vandy, the Gators were 11-13. As a team, the Gators are shooting 72.1 percent from the foul line.