By Eric Fawcett
Greetings, friends!
Things aren’t exactly rosy in Gainesville with the Gators losing 3 of 4 games, and I’ve got to be honest–this particular newsletter might have a bit of a negative tone, I’m realizing. Of course, I always try to be as balanced in my coverage as possible, so take whatever you want from me and come to whatever conclusions you want about the trajectory of this Gators basketball season.
Here are some thoughts I’m having regarding Florida basketball.
I don’t think the loss to Maryland will age well…at all.
The loss to Maryland is currently a quadrant-2 loss and that’s probably where it will stay, but I think it’s closer to being a quad-3 loss than it is to a quad-1 loss, if that makes sense. Things were not going well for a Terrapins team that was riding a three-game losing streak into Brooklyn where they beat the Gators, and of course, their head coach just quit. So, do I see things improving for them? Personally, no. I’ll say this–Fatts Russell was a better player than I remembered at Rhode Island where he was previously, and Qudas Wahab is a legit big man. But still, do I see their trajectory going upwards? No, I don’t, and this loss is going to sting on Florida’s resume. Worse than the Texas Southern loss? Ha, not even close, but it’s another loss hurting their NCAA Tournament bid. If the Gators don’t want to find themselves on the bubble, or on the wrong side of it, they’ll have to turn things around soon.
The Gators probably need to try out some of their bench pieces.
First of all, I’ll say this–I do think depth is overrated in college basketball. When you look at top teams year to year, many of them have tight 7 man rotations like Florida has been using recently.
However…
Those are 7 man rotations where everyone is getting the job done, and right now that isn’t happening with Florida. Sure, when they were beating Ohio State, only playing starters-plus-two is all good, but when you string together two weeks of poor basketball, I think it’s time to start looking at who on the end of the bench could change the complexion of the team and add some production.
I’ve written about him in newsletters a number of times but one name I really want to see getting more looks is freshman Kowacie Reeves. It is extremely apparent that the Gators lack offensive creation and shotmaking, and the 6’7” Reeves was a top-50 recruit because of his ability to do those two things. Is his defense incredible? No, and perhaps he’s even a below-average defender right now. But Florida’s biggest problem right now is the inability to put pressure on opposing defenses and they need someone in the mix who can make that happen. Reeves is the clear choice to get some run in my opinion, though more minutes for Elijah Kennedy who has knocked down shots and has been pretty good on the defensive end also makes sense.
If the top 7 were getting it done, I’d be all for riding those guys hard. But, they’re not, and it’s time for a change.
Florida is not elite defensively.
It was looking like this team was going to be an excellent defensive team early in the season but as we have seen, that is not the case. I just mentioned that Florida’s offense has been their biggest issue, but actually against Maryland they were able to score efficiently enough, it was their defense that struggled to get stops against a Maryland team that isn’t even that good offensively.
I have talked at length in the past about how I think Florida’s defensive schemes have issues and why I’d like to see them changed, but I have a bit of a different slant for this newsletter.
I just don’t think the Gators have enough elite individual defenders to be fantastic on that end.
I watched the Maryland game for a second time. And then a third. And then, I watched all Maryland’s made baskets again.
Were there some scheme decisions I had a problem with? Yeah, but it wasn’t the main thing I noticed. What jumped out was that the Gators had a number of players who simply couldn’t keep their man in front of them on the perimeter.
Brandon McKissic is a player that plays extremely hard and gives 110% effort on every play. It wasn’t for a lack of trying, but Fatts Russell was burning by him with ease whenever he wanted.
Anthony Duruji is a supreme athlete when it comes to leaping for rebounds or dunks. But, Eric Ayala was driving by him repeatedly.
Tyree Appleby is quick, but undersized. Fleming is a good but not great athlete, and Jones is both undersized and not explosive.
Sure, Florida can do some things scheme-wise better, but defense as a team is hard if there aren’t high level point of attack defenders.
The way Florida wants to pressure also made this deficiency apparent, as their style of defense requires good on-ball stoppage. That worked in the early season against teams that didn’t have great guards, but when the Gators saw even average high-major guards…it wasn’t so successful.
Right now the Gators are 26th in the country in adjusted defensive efficiency, far from elite. And I’m not sure where they’ll be able to end up without having many elite one-on-one defenders.
On a positive note–Florida did run better offense against Maryland.
We saw a bit more ball screen from the Gators, and also a lot more dribble handoff into ball screen sets that were pretty effective. They also abandoned a few of the actions they were trying to run against Oklahoma and Texas Southern that didn’t work whatsoever. I had been calling for the Gators to eliminate those sets that weren’t effective, so I was happy to see the Gators pivoting from those play calls.
I’m hoping this means the Gators see at least some of the problems they’re having and have some ideas of how to fix it, though I’ll be honest, I have some skepticism.
As always, thank you for your time! We’ll talk again next Thursday.