By Eric Fawcett
The Gators are starting to get some momentum and considering it’s late February this is about as good of a time to get hot as any. One beautiful thing about college basketball is that if you play well at the end of the season you can mostly cover up poor performances earlier in the year. Yes, your resume is your resume and some bad losses are still going to sting you but still, if you get hot going into your conference tournament you can string together some major wins and dart up the NCAA seeding chart. This is something the Gators will have a chance to do. Easier said than done, but they are in a much more positive position now than they were a few weeks ago and that’s a reason to celebrate.
Here are five things about Florida basketball that are occupying my mind:
1) Florida’s next three games are far more difficult than their last three games.
Not to diminish Florida’s dominant performances against Texas A&M, Vanderbilt, and an injury depleted Arkansas team but that is the easiest stretch of games the Gators are going to have in their season. They took care of things in the best way possible with comfortable wins where they played connected and efficient, but it has to be put in context with how bad those three teams are. The Aggies and Commodores are miles away from getting an invitation to any postseason tournament and injuries have put Arkansas on a five-game losing streak that has them at the bottom of the SEC standings. The Gators have been playing fantastic basketball but we can’t be totally sure of where they are at based on these recent opponents, but they’ll have plenty of opportunities to prove their ability in the next week and a half.
First, the Gators go to Lexington to take on Kentucky. Never an easy place to play, Rupp offers the Gators a chance at a big resume win that they could desperately use to elevate their resume and get into a more comfortable NCAA position. Then they’ve got LSU at home, one of the best offensive teams in the country before taking on Tennessee who has looked a lot better since Uruguay native Santiago Vescovi made it through the NCAA’s clearing house and started running the point for them.
This is where the Gators have the chance to prove who they truly are. Showing off against a good stretch of teams and getting victories would prove this team is better than their early season record has shown and if they play erratically, well, they prove they are an extremely erratic team. We’re going to learn a lot about the Gators in these next few contests.
2) The Gators still have an outside chance to win the SEC.
Despite a tough stretch of basketball that saw the Gators drop some winnable games (and not look great in the process) they are still in a position where they could win the SEC regular season title. Currently tied for third with LSU at 9-4, they are only two games back of the leader—Kentucky. Conveniently, the Gators still have a pair of games against Kentucky and if they were to win both they would erase the deficit and potentially take the lead over Auburn who is currently a game back.
Obviously, taking two games off Kentucky is easier said than done but this isn’t your regular Kentucky team. They’ve taken some questionable losses earlier in the season and if you’re a believer in predictive metrics than Kentucky isn’t anywhere near as good as national perception would suggest. They’re only 29th in KenPom, just a bit ahead of the Gators who are at 34th. That metric’s predictions have the home team winning in each Florida-Kentucky matchup which shows how close things should be. The Gators match up favorably with Andrew Nembhard and Kerry Blackshear Jr. staring down Ashton Hagans and Nick Richards, though I really feel like Keyontae Johnson has a big advantage over whoever is going to guard him. Which reminds me…
3) I’m ready to say it. Keyontae Johnson is Florida’s best player.
I’ll start with this disclaimer—who Florida’s best player is really doesn’t matter. These players play to win and I think the Gators are an unselfish basketball team who prioritizes team over self and in the grand scheme of things it really doesn’t matter who is best, though discussing who the best player is on a given team is a fundamental sports discussion and I am here for all the water cooler talk.
If you’re a believer in raw stats, you might be able to argue that Kerry Blackshear Jr. is Florida’s best player, and if you’re someone who dabbles in the advanced stats such as on/off number to evaluate a particular player there is a great argument that can be made for Andrew Nembhard to be the Gators’ most important player. But, if you asked me who I think the best player on the Gators is I have to go with Keyontae Johnson. That might seem like a take with a bit of recency bias since he was just dominant in the Gators’ win over Arkansas but this has been a take brewing for a little while now and his game against the Razorbacks just confirmed it.
Offensively, Johnson might not be the key initiator or the player that gets the most plays ran for him but he is unquestionably the best play finisher. No one on the Gators can get the ball into the paint like Johnson can with his explosive first step and when he gets there he has the length and power to finish. He’s also blossomed into the team’s second best 3-point shooter, and if he would be the best 3-point shooter on a lot of teams but Noah Locke has gone absolutely bananas from deep this season.
He also is only 0.6 rebounds per game behind Blackshear for the title of Florida’s leading rebounder (though in all fairness, Blackshear’s rebounding rates are better, he just hasn’t been able to stay on the floor) and that has been an area of focus for the team. Underrated as a passer, he keeps the ball swinging and makes his teammates better, something that has to be factored in to any discussion about who is a team’s best player. I could listen to arguments for Nembhard or Blackshear but to me, Johnson would be the team’s MVP up to this point.
4) I don’t blame the officiating for Kerry Blackshear Jr.’s foul trouble.
I really, really hope anyone is angered by this statement as I know a lot of people have been complaining about him getting a bad whistle, but watching the plays in real time I have never really thought Blackshear was getting screwed (amendment, in the Arkansas game there were some SOFT fouls on him). Using the power of film, I went back and watched every foul Blackshear had picked up this season to see if he was really getting the shaft or if there was some other story that was related to him picking up so many fouls.
After watching every foul, I’m sorry to say it, but I really don’t think he’s getting screwed by the officials.
I will say this—he is definitely not getting any star calls. So many of the best players in the country get a favorable eye from officials and despite being one of the most productive big men in the country he isn’t getting any favors from the refs. I honestly wonder if Blackshear, a quiet and respectful guy, was louder and ruder to the officials they would give him a better whistle, even if that is backwards. Call it the Calipari effect. Or the Pearl effect. Or the…ahh we could do this for a while.
But really, watching the tape most of his fouls are legitimate, and they are almost always related to something I’ve noticed from Blackshear—he doesn’t have great balance. You see this sometimes when he’s posting up on offense and he stumbles while turning to take a shot, but it’s to blame for a lot of his fouls. Blackshear has fouled a number of shooters with closeouts when he fell into a shooter instead of being able to come to a complete stop, he has been battling for position on rebounds and has started to fall and grabbed another player, and when White has him hedging on ball screens he has tipped over to the side and hip-checked ball handlers.
I wish I could come into this newsletter with a gallon of gasoline and a match and start flaming the officials but I’m telling you, after watching every foul Blackshear has picked up this season I just can’t say the officiating has been poor. These are legitimate fouls and the team would be wise to change the scheme a bit to something that doesn’t make Blackshear need to be as aggressive.
One thing to realize in terms of Blackshear’s relationships with officials is that he is 15th in the country in fouls drawn. He gets a ton of calls on the other end, he just, frankly, commits a lot of fouls himself.
5) If ever there was a chance for a lower seed to go on a run in the NCAA Tournament, it’s this season.
In a year that hasn’t gone particularly well for Florida it’s fairly convenient that it seems like all of college basketball is down. The teams at the top of the country don’t look like the typical elite programs we are used to seeing and there aren’t really teams that would terrify you to see in postseason play. The Gators got a great taste of this against Baylor, a team that has been arguably the most dominant team this season. Yes, they ended up beating the Gators by double digits but Florida didn’t play well yet still was in the ball game until the final few minutes.
It’s looking like the Gators are going to get into the NCAA Tournament, but right now it’s looking like they’re probably a 9-seed and some wins here to end the season could bump them up to maaaaybe a 7, but we’ll see. Depending on how things shake out the Gators could even win out the regular season, win the SEC, and be a 6. There is still a lot of season left. But anyways, the Gators aren’t going to be a high seed, and it should be encouraging to know that there aren’t great teams at the top of the college basketball world. If ever there was a year for a 7 or 8 seed to go on a run this would be the season and the Gators are probably going to be in that 7 or 8 seed range.
For example, say the Gators play in an 8-9 game and are able to get a win. If they see a 1-seed in San Diego State or Dayton would that scare you like Virginia or Gonzaga would last year? No. I’m not saying that to discredit the great season those programs are having, but I will say they aren’t the same quality you normally see from 1-seeds. Florida’s season hasn’t gone according to plan but with no great teams at the top, if the Gators can make sure they’re playing their best basketball of the season in March the sky’s the limit.