By Eric Fawcett
Last week saw two different experiences for the Gators from a miraculous home win that had the O’Dome pumping like it was 2007 for a win over #4 Auburn and then a game on the road against LSU where the environment was about as tough as it’s going to come between a boisterous, and occasionally vile and rude fan base and a referee crew that didn’t seem to have much respect for the Gators or their skilled players.
Here are some thoughts I’ve had over the last week.
1. Florida needs to defend a lot better to win.
Under Mike White the philosophy is Gainesville has been simple and apparent—defense first. It was what he preached over and over again in media appearances and he backed it up with the way he distributed minutes to his players and the way he allotted practice times. More than that, it was backed up with the way the team played. The Gators have been one of the best defensive teams in the country year to year in the past four seasons and White has been able to accomplish a top-25 defensive ranking in each one of them despite not having rosters built perfectly to defend. It’s not like the Gators have had an arsenal of athletic, long, defensive-minded players, they’ve actually been generally undersized and under-athletic and that’s usually something that hurts you on the defensive end.
However, this year is a drastically different story. Florida is now 48th in KenPom’s adjusted defensive efficiency metric (which adjusts for quality of competition and is the industry standard in evaluating teams) which is far and away the lowest placement that Florida has even touched in the last four years. The loss of Kevarrius Hayes to graduation has been tougher than many could have expected and though Scottie Lewis who is an excellent defender entered the mix it’s not the same as having a rim protecting presence like Hayes.
Against LSU the lack of a rim protecting presence was really on display. Skylar Mays and Javonte Smart would get an angle on their primary defender, not beating them entirely but getting a bit of a lane, and then when they got to the rim they didn’t face a ton of resistance.
Omar Payne is definitely becoming the rim protector the Gators needs and he’s going to get there soon. However, some teams like LSU are scheming him out of the chance to always be a primary help player. They’d involve him in primary actions on the perimeter like a pick and roll to draw him away from the hoop and when that happened they’d swing the ball to the other side of the floor and then get a drive. Without Payne to protect the rim there was little resistance.
White has never been a coach that liked to play a lot of zone but I wonder if it’s something he’ll consider with this group as they don’t have dominant perimeter threats who can clamp down one on one and they also don’t have great help defenders with Kerry Blackshear Jr. playing so many front court minutes. An adjustment may be in order here.
2. Don’t look now, but this is an offense-minded basketball team.
At the expense of Florida’s defense first mentality over the last few seasons has been the offense, much to the dismay of a certain faction of fans who would have rather seen the Gators put more points on the board.
Don’t look now, but this is now an offense-first basketball team.
Okay, they’re really not and I’m sure Mike White would hate reading that. His philosophies haven’t changed and while I’m sure he’s incredibly pleased that the offense has started to come around he’s got to be fuming about the defensive numbers.
Remember how I mentioned the Gators were 48th in adjusted defensive efficiency? Well, they’re now 26th in adjusted offensive efficiency. That number is quite easily the best that Florida has been in the last three seasons (the Elite Eight team in ’17 finished 25th, so the Gators could beat that) and it’s been on a slow upward trajectory since they started the season searching on that end.
That number is better than number one in the AP Poll Baylor, the undefeated San Diego State, and, *squints* the Butler team that was a top five offense for most of the first six weeks of the season.
This shows that despite what some people think, Coach White can coach offense. I know there are some negative people out there, maybe even some of you reading this, but I think those people need to give White some credit for figuring out the offense a bit. They’ve strung together good to great offensive performances in every one of their SEC games (I classify this as 1 point per possession or better and they’ve accomplished that, even in the blowout loss to Missouri) and that consistency shows this isn’t just a flash in the pan.
The Gators are scoring well enough to win a lot of games and right now it’s looking like their offense won’t be a problem moving forward in the SEC. That could change fast but with 6 good offensive performances in 6 SEC games so far they have shown there is reason to be optimistic.
3. Noah Locke’s shooting is back and better than ever.
To start the season something looked different about Noah Locke’s jump shot. He wasn’t jumping as high and he didn’t have the same power transfer from his legs. The release was much quicker, but at the expense of the higher elevation and explosion he was getting on his initial form. In the first few games this tweak to his mechanics didn’t seem to be working greatly as he started a baffling sub-30% from three, a number that seemed to compound Florida’s struggles. However, he seems to have settled into a more comfortable release and it’s absolutely working for him.
Locke is shooting 54.5% from three in conference play and he has done it on a lot of attempts and many of those shots have come in big moments. 54.5% is obviously extremely high and it’s probably going to regress a bit over time but really, I wonder how much that regression is going to be. As a freshman he was shooting near 44% before a hip injury messed with his mechanics and if he was shooting 44% as a freshman at his peak I wonder what he could do now.
Adding to his quality shooting season is the fact that he’s one of the major benefactors of Florida’s improved offense. Andrew Nembhard, Kerry Blackshear Jr., and Keyontae Johnson drawing defensive attention has allowed Locke to get freed up for open look after open look and when Locke gets those opportunities, he knows what to do with it. Overall Locke is up to 42.5% on the season which is good for 136th in the country but when it comes to tracking his shooting I think I’m just going to be looking at his SEC mark. Early in the season when he was missing shots it was with a different shooting motion and while you can’t erase that from his season total it’s not an accurate measure of how he’s shooting right now with the last couple of weeks as a sample size.
Right now Noah Locke is a 54.5% three-point shooter and could very well be the best marksman in the country right now.
4. Mike White has established who the backup point guard is.
Against Auburn Andrew Nembhard needed to go to the bench earlier than normal in the first half due to the sickness he was fighting. This gave us a chance to see who White really sees as the backup point guard of this team. Then, against LSU a similar situation occurred and with the Tigers really pressuring the point guard White had to put in the player he most trusted to handle the ball.
It was the same player in both situations, Ques Glover who White has very clearly established he trusts more than Tre Mann due to the fact he’s given him key backup point guard minutes in these big games.
Has it gone well? Well…not exactly.
Against Auburn the offense came to a halt with Glover unable to navigate the Tigers defense and make the right reads and against LSU, let’s say there was a bit of a learning experience.
He turned the ball over twice (routine passes that turned errant) on consecutive possessions which lead to 5 easy LSU points and he had a third turnover, a travel that made it 3 turnovers in 8 minutes and just to rub salt in the wound LSU scored on that possession immediately afterwards making for 7 total points coming off Glover’s 3 turnovers.
In all fairness he was matched up with Skylar Mays, a 6’4” senior who has extreme quickness and physicality. Still, he probably should have found a way not to turn over the ball thrice even with the Tigers cranking up pressure. It’s clear he’s still adjusting to SEC basketball and playing on the road at LSU and going against Mays is one heck of baptism, but while he was turning over the ball but staying in the game it showed White trusts him more than his other backup PG Tre Mann.
Mann hasn’t been able to bring the defensive quality that White is looking for and Glover has him beaten in that category. Glover’s ability to pressure the ball has surpassed what Mann can do as a primary defender and right now that seems to be what White is looking for. It’s also not like Mann has lit it up on the other end though he has started to show some of the reasons why he was a five-star recruit. Against Auburn he had some flashy buckets including a sidestep three off the dribble and smooth hesitation move into a layup but right now if he can’t defend it doesn’t look like White is going to give him much of a leash.
You can always tell who a coach trusts by how he gives out minutes and it’s clear that he sees Ques Glover ahead of Tre Mann.
5. Florida’s effort and hustle aren’t an issue.
This is about as hot of a take as I’m going to throw out today and while I’m not exactly a hot take artist that fires up spicy opinions hot out of the oven this might feel like one after the team’s effort was questioned by many after the LSU game.
Perhaps I should have used this as the title of my fifth point but I’m going to stick with what I did and deliver my thesis here:
The rebounding stat should not be used as a gauge of a team’s effort, hustle, want, heart, or whatever word you want you to use.
For those missing out on what I’m saying, essentially every time the Gators have been outrebounding this season there have been a vocal group of fans suggesting the team didn’t want to play hard that night, and if they showed more effort or hustle it would have shown in the rebounding column.
Florida was outrebounded heavily by LSU a game after the Gators pounded Auburn, who is a good rebounding team, on the glass. Seeing the Gators rebound so well against Auburn showed the rebounding potential of this team and when it fell short against LSU that made some people this that it must have been an effort problem since they showed they could dominate against Auburn.
Truthfully, I think the idea that rebounding is all about hustle and effort is rooted in a lack of understanding. Let’s look at Florida’s game against LSU. Skylar Mays and Javonte Smart had the ball in their hands most of the time and they were getting to the paint whenever they wanted. When they would get a drive to the hoop Kerry Blackshear Jr. or Omar Payne would have to slide over to help and try to block the shot. Now that they are defending the ball, the player they are guarding is now all alone. Smart would put up a layup and if it missed due to pressure from Blackshear or Payne, the player who they were guarding would be unchecked and could easily get the offensive rebound.
Schematically, as soon as Florida’s big goes to help it’s the responsibility of a perimeter player on the weak side to “help the helper” and go box out the player who was vacated. That’s all well and good in theory but in the speed of an SEC basketball game that is really tough to do and even when it is done effectively that still means you have a perimeter player like Noah Locke now needing to box out a center like 6’9”, 240 pound Trendon Watford which is a tough ask.
When I see the Gators get dominated on the glass against LSU I see it as a breakdown in perimeter defense. The offensive rebounds the Tigers were getting were due to the fact their guards were getting in the paint and drawing Florida’s big men which allowed the Tiger bigs to go unchecked. This wasn’t a matter of Florida not wanted to be physical or a matter of them not trying hard enough, these were defensive breakdowns.
I will look schematically at these plays and criticize how the Gators didn’t execute but I simply don’t think it was a matter of them not working hard enough. If I ever see the Gators not wanting to hustle I’ll criticize that too but there isn’t anything I have seen this year that has made me question the hustle. I would caution anyone from ever looking at the rebound column to gauge a team’s effort.