By Eric Fawcett
Last week saw the Gators get embarrassed at Ole Miss, but it was good to see them bounce back against Texas A&M who is, well…the team you want to see when you need a bounce back game. Not trying to be rude to the Aggies, but they came into Wednesday’s game ranked 275th in KenPom’s adjusted offensive efficiency metric and they are a team that lost to Fairfield earlier in the year. Fairfield!
Though, it is worth noting that they have wins over Missouri and Ole Miss, too teams that have obviously given the Gators fits recently, so maybe their decisive 78-61 win means more than I’m giving them credit for.
Whatever the case may be, here are my 5 thoughts for this week.
1) We may never see Florida’s best lineup on the floor again.
For those of you who regularly check in to this newsletter or read my writing at the site you’ll know I have pointed out the excellence of a particular lineup, one that is unquestionably the Gators’ best by the numbers, and the lineup that was starting games when Florida was playing their best basketball of the season. That lineup is:
Andrew Nembhard
Noah Locke
Keyontae Johnson
Kerry Blackshear Jr.
Omar Payne
Well, after Wednesday’s game it has now been five contests since that quintet has seen the floor and if it’s gone this far, we may not see it again.
It makes you wonder why that’s the case, and it’s got to start with Omar Payne who has been the player of that five who has seen his minutes decreased the most. Against Texas A&M he had a couple of tough fouls (including everyone’s favorite flagrant-1 call on the hook and hold) that kept him from potentially getting more run and he had an emphatic put back dunk attempt get stuffed by the rim. Despite those particular plays he looked comfortable out there, as he has the rest of the season, but it’s clear White just doesn’t see him as a big part of the rotation.
It seems White is most comfortable playing small ball, something he has done his whole coaching career. Playing the five I laid out as the best statistically doesn’t include Scottie Lewis, someone White has definitely been trying to get on the floor more often. I wonder if that could be the root cause of the best five not getting on the floor more, and even if it’s not the root cause it’s definitely one of the factors.
Jason Jitoboh also getting into games more than he did earlier in the season has decreased the possibility for the five to get on the floor together, and while he hasn’t been particularly effective I can see why the staff want to get his gargantuan frame some minutes to continue to develop.
I’m not sure the best five will ever see the floor again in key moments, and that will always baffle me. Who knows what the reason is behind that five not playing together anymore, but I hope it’s a good one because it seems crazy to me that they aren’t out there.
2) Tre Mann is starting to come along, but not in the way you would have thought.
Tre Mann came out of high school as a lethal scorer, someone who you could give the ball to in space and tell him to go get a bucket. More often than not, he’d deliver.
Now in college, the scoring hasn’t translated. The jump shot has betrayed him and he hasn’t been able to blow past guys with the dribble and that has led to offensive struggles which, in turn, severely limited his minutes.
Over the last few games he has started to really play well and you can see the coaching staff’s trust in him has really grown as he has played more and more minutes. The thing is, it hasn’t been his offense that has gotten him more of a role—it’s his defense. This isn’t something you would have expected for him coming out of high school but with his shots not falling you can see that he has found other ways to contribute to winning and that’s with his defense.
Earlier in the season Mann struggled on the defensive end, finding it difficult to contain dribble penetration and occasionally getting lost in Florida’s switch-happy scheme. Through hard work and what I’m sure was a lot of mental practice in film study he has really improved his work defensively, most notably as a help defender. When the ball gets swung to the opposite side Mann inhabits he has recognized when he’s been in a position to help and timed his rotations perfectly, something that has resulted in him drawing a lot of charges.
His effort on defense is easy to notice as well as he’s fought over screens and stayed in a stance while picking opposing guards up near the half court line, going the extra mile in frustrating his check.
Mann working hard to improve his defense shows a mature player that has found ways to contribute. Not every scorer would be able to shift his role when his shots aren’t falling and instead of sulking Mann has worked hard on the defensive end and it has meant more minutes for him on Florida’s perimeter.
3) Mike White has had enough of Florida turning the ball over, and rightfully so.
One of Florida’s problems recently has been their inability to take care of the ball and careless turnovers have been backbreakers during a stretch of basketball where not a lot has gone right. When Florida turns the ball over not only have they negated their chance to get points, but a lot of the turnovers have meant transition buckets for the other team. Against Ole Miss they coughed it up 15 times and unfortunately the effort wasn’t much better against Texas A&M as they chalked up 14.
The difference in the Texas A&M game was that White was starting to pull players off the floor for careless turnovers. Ques Glover, who entered the game with 7 turnovers in his last 14 minutes, started off his night with an ill-advised attempt to throw the ball over the Aggies’ pressure and the resulting turnover saw him plunked on the pine and it wasn’t until much later in the game when he reappeared. Andrew Nembhard had some uncharacteristic travels that saw White call him to the bench early, and in doing so you saw that White was done seeing his players be casual with the basketball.
Early in White’s time at Florida the Gators demonstrated excellent ball security but that hasn’t been the case over the last two seasons. Considering the Gators are one of the youngest teams in the country it makes sense that responsibility with the ball wouldn’t be a strength but it’s clear White is starting to use the threat of a benching as motivation for the Gators to be smarter with the ball.
4) The Gators are still in a pretty good position when it comes to the SEC standings.
Even though the Gators had a stretch where they lost 3 of 5 SEC games they are still in a pretty decent position to finish at the top of the league. They’ll be favored to win 5 of their last 7 games and if that were to happen they’d almost certainly finish in the top four of the conference which would put them in a great position for the SEC Tournament.
Additionally, the Gators will likely be trailing LSU and Kentucky and they still play the Wildcats twice and the Tigers another time and wins there could really shake up the standings.
This should also give the team some hope in terms of their NCAA Tournament hopes. Most brackets currently have the Gators just getting in as a 10-seed and while that isn’t a great place to be in the bracket it’s still impressive that the team is considered to be in despite what has been a rocky season. On the assumption the Gators are already in the tournament picture (even as a 10-seed) going 5-2 the rest of the way as the odds would predict would definitely be enough to get in with certainty, though a nice run in the SEC Tournament would certainly make them feel a lot better, and it would be great for them to improve their seed.
For the record, their two predicted losses are to Kentucky and Tennessee on the road.
5) Noah Locke is near the top of the country in three very different and unrelated stats.
Let’s start with the first one, and it’s going to really shock you.
Three-point shooting.
Okay, I actually started with the obvious one. He’s shooting a blistering 48.5% from behind the arc in conference season making him easily the best shooter from distance in the SEC but also one of the top marksmen in the country. Locke had a shaky start to the season where it looked like he was trying to tweak his release a bit and there were a couple weeks where he was in the low 30s and if not for that rough couple of games (including an 0-7 outing against Florida State) he’d be over 50% from three.
Okay, now we’ll get into the more obscure ones.
Locke is 8th in the country in foul rate, meaning he commits fouls less than just about anyone in the country. That’s 8th out of 2214 division one players that have played enough regular minutes to be eligible for ranking. He’s only averaging 1.2 fouls per 40 minutes, a number that shows just how little he’s fouling. For a Gators team that has struggled with committing fouls it’s good that Locke hardly commits any, though I almost wonder if he should be a bit more aggressive defensively which might result in a few more fouls. Locke has been a willing defender who has actually been pretty physical at the point of attack, so I think his ability to defend without fouling has to be admired.
Last in our trio of statistics that Locke is one of the best in the country at we have…wait for it… turnover percentage!
Locke is 36th in the country in turnover percentage making him one of the most reliable players in the country. Of course, earlier in this newsletter we talked about Florida’s trouble with turnovers so it’s good they have one player who is cautious with the basketball. It’s not a big surprise that Locke would rank so well in this category as he isn’t someone who is aggressive with the basketball. He’s not in a playmaking role where he needs to make reads or too many passes so he shouldn’t be a high turnover player but even with that being the case I think he deserves credit for staying within himself and making high-percentage plays with the basketball.
Thanks for checking in to my five thoughts, check your inbox at the same time next week and we’ll talk again!