Baseball starts soon and that means this is one of the last weeks that basketball is front and center. Of course, some of you diehards will remain super locked in to basketball and to those of you–I salute you!
Here are some thoughts circling my head regarding Florida basketball.
Florida just played two not very good basketball games.
Win against Georgia, win against Vanderbilt.
Sure.
8-point win and 7-point win?
Sure.
But man, the Gators did look good in either of these games. Whether it be defensive connectivity or offensive execution the Gators didn’t look particularly good on either side of the floor and even though they won both of these games against the basement of the SEC it did not leave a particularly good taste in your mouth as they nearly allowed both leads to slide.
I know some of you will be thinking to yourself “a win is a win” and I get that, but if ultimately the truth always makes its way to the surface and when Florida plays good teams (they’ll play a heck of a good one on Saturday) they could get exposed despite coming off a couple of wins.
The team definitely deserves credit for finding ways to win despite not playing well, but it’s the not playing well part that I’m concerned about.
Despite that…
This is an incredibly talented basketball team, as shown in the last two games.
The Gators just won two SEC games with some level of ease (it could have been a lot of ease if not for the stretches where they almost squandered both games) and they did it while playing poorly. That’s because their supreme level of talent won out.
When sets broke down, they had the two best shot makers on the floor in Tre Mann and Tyree Appleby who created space and hit contested shots. Sometimes they lacked spacing, but they dumped it on the inside to Colin Castleton who was taller than anyone he was matched up against. When they bricked a shot, Omar Payne or Anthony Duruji who were the most athletic players on the floor got offensive rebound after offensive rebound.
In the last two games they were easily the more skilled, more athletic, and longer team on the floor which allowed them to win despite not playing well. Truthfully, this is kind of encouraging. You would have never said that the Gators had the talent advantage in the last couple of seasons and for that reason their margin of error was so slim. Have a rough shooting game? Probably lose. Get pounded on the glass? Probably lose. However, this team can get beaten in a few aspects of the game but make up for it in other ways. It speaks to just how good the team is, which should also say something about their ceiling.
West Virginia is going to be a very challenging game on Saturday.
The SEC-Big 12 Challenge is on Saturday and the Gators drew the West Virginia Mountaineers, a team that has been fantastic this season and a top-20 AP Poll team for most of the year.
The Mountaineers have been known as a team that’s tough, physical, and defensive minded, but that isn’t as much the case anymore. They’re an offense-first team that can really score the ball, and though their defense isn’t what it used to be they still have plenty of toughness and love to compete on the glass.
When Florida has lost this season it has largely been for one of two reasons. First, the other team torches them offensively and the Gators are unable to get stops, or second, the Gators get hammered on the glass.
West Virginia is perfectly equipped to do both of those things.
This is going to be one heck of a battle for the Gators who are going in without a ton of momentum. Yes, they have just won a couple, but they looked far from good doing so. West Virginia just had a huge win over a very good Texas Tech team and for that reason will be coming in with a lot more confidence. Additionally, this game is in West Virginia where they are slated to have some fans in attendance making noise.
Buckle up, this could be a tough one.
The Gators could really use a resume win.
A road game at West Virginia offers the Gators a chance at a quadrant-1 win, the most valuable thing you can have on your NCAA Tournament resume. That is something the Gators could desperately use. They have already had some resume dings such as what’s looking to be a quadrant-3 loss to Kentucky (or in other words, a very, very bad loss) and outside of the win against Tennessee they don’t have a lot in the quality wins category.
It’s pretty tough to project brackets right now due to the widely varying amounts of games different teams have played and the abbreviated non-conference slate but it’s safe to say the Gators aren’t in a great spot. They have a top-30 NET rating which is solid, and probably ensures they are in the projected field as of right now. However, they simply don’t have enough quality wins to suggest they’d be anything better than a 7-ish seed right now. They could definitely use a boost with a win over West Virginia which is much easier said than done, but just know they’ll be playing for a lot Saturday.
The freshman usage has been a bit bizarre.
Sometimes Niels Lane gets a bunch of minutes, and sometimes Samson Ruzhentsev gets none. Sometimes Ruzhentsev plays a bit, and sometimes Lane doesn’t get a look. Sometimes, it flips. And sometimes, I lose track of possible combinations of these two playing and not playing because it’s all over the place how White uses them.
Early in the season it was Ruzhentsev that seemed to have the trust of White as he got in games but Lane didn’t. Then it was the other way around as Ruzhentsev was left to marinate on the bench as Lane got minutes. When Florida hammered Tennessee Lane played 18 minutes, something that I thought would ensure him a role moving forward. Nope. 3 minutes against Georgia, none against Vanderbilt. But wait–Ruzhentsev, who wasn’t in the mix against Tennessee or Georgia, got 6 minutes against Vanderbilt.
The usage of the freshmen has been erratic, and it probably hasn’t helped them establish any level of rhythm as they try to get their feet wet in college basketball. What makes things even more interesting is the fact that they are kind of opposite players. Ruzhentsev is the drastically better offensive player, but he hasn’t looked totally comfortable defensively. Lane, on the other hand, brings value on the defensive end but isn’t somehow that is going to threaten the other team with his scoring.
Mike White seems to be unsure of what to do with them, and for that reason we’ll continue to not know who we’ll see, or when, or for how long. Enjoy these players when you do get a glimpse.
That’s all, talk to you next week!