By Eric Fawcett
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening Gator fans! Whenever you find yourself reading this, I’m happy you tuned in. Florida basketball just had a bananas game against Georgia in which they nearly came back from 22 points down and blew a 10 point lead in the same half, but luckily they kept it to just the former and won the game against long odds. Whatever your thoughts were on the team before this game are probably still the same after this circus of basketball display but whether you’re ecstatic the team showed that much fight to get back into it or furious that the team allowed themselves to get down by 22, I’m glad you’re here. Here are five thoughts about Florida basketball that have been swirling around my head.
1) Using deeper analytics would help this team greatly.
Mike White and his staff have allegedly been getting more and more into analytics and while that may be the case they are still definitely more on the side of “feel” coaching versus having numbers dictate decisions made within a game. I have written in the past at Gator Country about a few different things I’d like them to factor analytics into such as shot selection or timeout usage but there has been something recently that I really wish they’d look at.
Lineup analysis data.
I wrote about this at Gator Country a few days ago and I’d love for you to check it out, but I’ll summarize here.
The Gators started to play their best basketball in the SEC portion of the schedule and they did it with a new starting lineup that featured two big men. It looked like this:
Andrew Nembhard
Noah Locke
Keyontae Johnson
Omar Payne
Kerry Blackshear
This group of five players was excellent. Running the lineup data they were at 1.53 points per possession offensively and 0.63 points per possession defensively.
For those of you who aren’t super deep into the weeds of basketball analytics, 1.0 points per game is considered good, so scoring above that offensive is tremendous and if you’re allowing less than that number, great. So, the fact that lineup was so far above 1.0 PPP offensively and below 1.0 PPP defensively showed they were absolutely dominant.
This wasn’t just noticeable in the numbers but was seen in the eye test as well. The Gators hammered #4 Auburn, crushed Ole Miss, and were generally playing their best basketball of the season when they started that group of five players and played them lots of minutes.
Then, they played one of their worst games of the season against Mississippi State.
That lineup of five players that had been so good for them so far SEC play didn’t see the floor once.
Then the Gators limped past a horrible Vanderbilt team. That lineup didn’t play either and the Gators struggled to score against one of the worst defenses in the country.
The Gators did manage to beat Georgia but barely as they fell behind by 22 and, you guessed it, that group didn’t play together.
It’s likely the staff doesn’t do any of this lineup analysis data but I really wish they would. If that group played against Mississippi State that game could have gone a lot differently and they probably don’t struggle against Vanderbilt either. This is one example of where analytics could really help the team and embracing numbers could really help improve this team on the margins.
2) Keyontae Johnson might be the best NBA prospect on the Gators.
First of all, I’m not saying this to bring down any of the other players on the Gators, this is about showcasing how good Keyontae Johnson is. First, if he stepped onto a NBA floor tomorrow he’d already have the body and the athleticism to compete. You can’t say that about a lot of players in college but you can easily say that about Johnson, a man who looks like he was chiseled out of granite. The NBA is always looking for players that have the requisite level of athleticism for the league and Keyontae Johnson checks that box and then some.
Not only is he an NBA caliber athlete but he’s taken another step with his 3-point shooting this year, hitting 42% of his shots from behind the arc. There are always places in the NBA for athletic players who can defend their position and hit threes and Johnson is doing both of those things.
One question about his pro prospects will be his size as he’s only 6’5” but I’d look at how Grant Williams from Tennessee was drafted and is playing a role in the NBA this season. He’s not much taller than Johnson but Johnson is longer, more athletic, and a better shooter. If Williams is someone playing meaningful minutes in the NBA I don’t see why Johnson can’t. Of course, I’d be happy if Johnson played out his entire eligibility, but I’m not totally sure that’s going to happen with how good he’s looking as a player.
3) Despite the recent losses, the Gators could challenge for second in the SEC.
I know things were pretty doom and gloom after the Gators lost to Mississippi State but they are still in a pretty good position to finish second in the SEC. I wish I could say they have a good shot at winning the league but LSU is undefeated with a multiple game lead on the rest of the pack and their schedule remaining is fairly easy. There is a chance the Gators catch them as they do play the Tigers once more, but you’d have to hope LSU drops some games they shouldn’t.
Just because they likely won’t win that doesn’t mean they can’t finish second. They entered Wednesday’s game with Georgia 4th in the league despite some bad losses and when you look at KenPom’s projections moving forward the Gators are expected to go 7-2 the rest of the way with losses coming at Tennessee and Kentucky. Kentucky has had some good showings this year but some terrible ones as well and all the metrics that evaluate Kentucky suggest they aren’t a great team and it seems like only the AP Poll looks at them kindly.
(P.S. The Evansville team that beat Kentucky is 1-12 in their last 13 games. 1-13!!!)
Tennessee is another team that’s totally beatable, so there is a chance the Gators take care of business and stay right in the top couple of seeds in the SEC. I know the team hasn’t exactly looked like world beaters recently but despite these poor performances the metrics still look kindly on the Gators and they can still win a bunch more games in the regular season and from there we’ll have to see.
4) Where would this basketball team be if Kerry Blackshear Jr. didn’t come?
Before the season it was looking like the Gators had depth in the frontcourt even if Blackshear decided to graduate transfer somewhere else but now that he’s here, oh man does it look dark to think about what would have happened if he decided on another team.
Obviously things haven’t gone very well for the Gators this year and of course, without his production it’s likely the Gators would be in a much worse spot. But more than that, the Gators would hardly have enough bodies to play frontcourt minutes.
Before the season it was said that finally Gorjok Gak was going to be at 100% after hardly playing in the two seasons prior due to a host of injuries. That, of course, didn’t happen at all and he has since left the program.
Dontay Bassett has had some good moments when he has been healthy but he hasn’t been able to play in the last five games and he missed five games prior to that. Plus, there have been games he has gotten into but has been limited so it’s almost like he has more than the 10 games missed to injury.
If Blackshear didn’t come the Gators would have been left with only Omar Payne and Jason Jitoboh capable of playing minutes, and it’s not fully known how much Jitoboh would be able to handle coming off an injury in high school.
It’s a dark timeline to think of if Kerry Blackshear Jr. didn’t come but seeing the injuries to Bassett and Gak should make you even more happy he chose Florida.
5) Perhaps players in foul trouble should be kept on the floor more often.
One common thread for Florida’s season has been the fact that they haven’t gotten good minutes from their bench. Their starters have been good but when they’ve got to the secondary unit things haven’t gone well for the Gators.
This was evidenced against Georgia where things were going well until Kerry Blackshear Jr. and Keyontae Johnson picked up two early fouls and went to the bench. Georgia went on a 13-0 run and it was a hole that was nearly too big for the Gators to overcome.
Sending players to the bench as soon as they have any semblance of foul trouble is nothing new for White. KenPom has a “2-Foul Participation” stat that tracks how much a coach keeps players in foul trouble on the floor versus how much he takes them off. The Gators are currently 301st in that category showing that they do not keep players in foul trouble on the floor.
Looking at White’s career numbers amongst active coaches he is, wait for it…301st. Eerie.
So, it’s pretty clear he’s someone that doesn’t like to roll the dice with his players in foul trouble, he likes to keep them on the bench so they don’t foul out and become unavailable at the end of games.
To be honest, I am not in agreement when it comes to that strategy. Let’s start with this—what is the punishment for fouling out? It’s not a trick question—the punishment is that a player is sent to the bench and is unavailable to play.
So…if you’re aggressively taking out your players due to foul trouble early and sending them to the bench, aren’t you incurring the penalty already?
I did some research and saw that in 8 games this year White has pulled Kerry Blackshear due to 2 early fouls. In 6 of those games, he finished with 3 fouls, not close to fouling out. So, even though he didn’t end up close to the fouling out threshold he still incurred the penalty of going to the bench.
Against Georgia Keyontae Johnson missed out on the last 10 minutes of the first half because he had 2 fouls. He finished the game with….2 fouls. Keeping him off the floor in the first half nearly killed the Gators and I just don’t think the risk of him potentially fouling out is worth keeping off the floor as the Gators were getting killed in the first.
Considering Florida’s bench has been so poor I’d love to see them keep key players on the floor with two fouls in the first half or three fouls early in the second. Seeing players get taken off with two early fouls only to have them end the game with three seems a bit foolish to me and I’d rather not the team penalize themselves by putting starters on the bench. Let them continue to play and if they foul out, so be it. I’d rather them play their normal minutes and maybe miss out on the final few possessions due to fouling out then get sat for 10 minutes in the first half to then end the game with 2 or 3 fouls.