By Eric Fawcett
It’s Thursday and that means it’s time for five more thoughts coming from me, the guy who spends a possibly concerning amount of time thinking about Florida basketball. I hope you enjoy and I hope it gets you thinking!
1. The computers like the Gators.
It’s 2020 and that means when evaluating college basketball teams it can’t all be the eye test, whether it’s arguing what team is better at the water cooler or the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee deciding who is a 7-seed and who misses the dance entirely. There are all kinds of predictive metrics out there to choose from and some of them are even used by the Selection Committee when evaluating teams in March. Of course, that’s in addition to using the NET rankings, the NCAA’s own system.
I think we can all agree that Florida’s season hasn’t gotten off to a great start. For that reason, you’d think a lot of the computer numbers would hate the Gators. However, that’s not actually the case.
In the NET ranking Florida is up to 42nd. That number might not seem particularly high but in the early season this ranking is all over the place. The Gators are one spot ahead of Stephen F. Austin who of course beat Duke, but haven’t done a lot else.
Here is where Florida stands in some key predictive metrics:
Sagarin: 26
Haslametrics: 37
Barttorvik: 27
And of course, there is KenPom, the godfather of predictive analytics. The one that people hold in higher regard than any of the others.
In that ranking the Gators are 24th.
So, it isn’t like any of these metrics see the Gators as incredible right now but considering the fact the Gators took their lumps but are still in a decent position I’d say the numbers look favorably at their season. Staying in the mid-twenties to mid-thirties range considering the start to the season Florida had is impressive and if they start getting some quality wins they could rocket up the rankings.
One thing that has helped the Gators in the metrics is Providence starting to play great basketball. After Florida dismantled them on a neutral floor in Brooklyn they have went on to beat good teams in Texas, DePaul, Georgetown, and Marquette which makes the Gators’ win look a lot better.
Staying relevant in the numbers is also a testament to good scheduling. Playing a difficult schedule has allowed them to take losses and still look good in the numbers, showing why it’s a pretty good strategy.
2. Coach White just won his 200th career game, but I don’t really care.
Hold on, that statement sounded extremely negative and honestly quite rude, but that’s not at all what I meant it to be. Let me rephrase.
Coach White just won his 200th game, but I’ll remind you that win totals aren’t a good way to evaluate coaches.
Before I go any further I’ve got to establish my position on Coach White, someone who has taken fire from a lot of fans and boosters, some of them who desperately want him to be moved on from.
I am a supporter of White, I think he’s a great recruiter and a great defensive coach who is still developing his offensive understanding of the game. Criticisms of White have been understandable and I’m not just the “sunshine pumper” I get accused of being on the forums at times but I just need to establish I am a supporter of White and I definitely don’t want him fired. I just needed to get that out because some people are going to think my comment about not caring about his 200th win are a shot at White, and it’s not.
Actually, I really do congratulate him on 200 wins.
What I wanted to get out is that using a win total to evaluate a coach is a shallow way to do so. Billy Donovan got to 200 wins a couple games earlier than White did. Does that make Donovan just a couple games better of a coach than White? If White had won 200 games a couple games earlier than Donovan would he be better?
There is no way of knowing.
That’s because in college basketball schedules are DRASTICALLY different team to team. DRASTICALLY.
D-R-A-S-T-I-C-A-L-L-Y.
Yet, people still look at a particular win total to say whether or not a season was successful and they look at win-loss records to evaluate a coach. White has taken criticism for not hitting 23 or 24 wins in the last two seasons. They also played two of the toughest schedules in the country last season. Yet, people will still look at Florida’s 21 and 20 wins in those seasons and say they were failures.
To make those people happy should Florida just play easy schedules?
If Florida wanted to guarantee 11 wins in the non-conference every season, they could. They could schedule Southern East-West State, Scrub U, and Cupcake Campus 11 times and guarantee wins and even though it wouldn’t accomplish anything there would still be people who would look at the win-loss column at the end of the year and evaluate the team and coaching staff the same way as if it were an incredibly difficult schedule. That is a short-sighted way of looking at things and when evaluating the records of coaches and teams you can’t just look at win total, you need context of how difficult a schedule it was.
Congratulations on 200 wins, Mike White. I truly mean that and hope that everyone understands the difficulty of the schedule you’ve put Florida through when evaluating some of your seasons.
3. Andrew Nembhard is coming alive as a scorer and it’s really helping Florida’s offense.
I wrote about this in greater lengths at Gator Country, about his shooting off the dribble specifically, but I don’t think we can talk enough about Nembhard’s growth as a scorer. A year ago as a freshman he wasn’t a great scorer, whether with the shot or around the rim, and defenses would force him to be a finisher instead of allowing him to pass the ball and demonstrate his vision.
He worked hard in the offseason to fix that and he has went from being one of the worst pull-up shooters in the country to one of the best. That has made him much more of a scorer threat out of the pick and roll and it has totally changed the way teams have had to guard the Gators. They can’t just hide under screens and dare Nembhard to shoot and now that they’re chasing him he can get into the paint and use his passing ability. That is a big reason why we have seen improved offensive efforts from the Gators the last few games and a big reason why the Gators are up to 34th in adjusted offensive efficiency this season. That number is better than they were in the last two years which definitely shows growth within the roster.
Nembhard and Noah Locke are in the gym every single night getting shots up and Nembhard’s work is really starting to come up with results. Florida has needed a shot maker and he has been that guy.
Shooting off the dribble is a premium skill but it’s also a requirement for any guard who is going to play in the NBA. When Nembhard was going through the NBA Draft process I’m sure it was a part of the feedback he received and was probably one of the motivating factors in him improving the shot.
Whatever his motivations were, he’s helping the Gators and his pull-up game is welcomed.
4. Scottie Lewis’ offense is slowly coming along.
Lewis has quietly put together three straight double-digit scoring games, something that’s impressive for a player who does most of his work on the defensive end. Most notably he had a few jump shots fall, something that has been a bit of a concern regarding his game. He loves the dribble jumper a little bit too much, and there was a play against South Carolina where he passed up the open three in favor of the dribble three exactly two feet closer to the rim and that needs to be ironed out, but questionable shot selection aside he is starting to see the ball go through the hoop and that’s something that should be encouraging for him.
The best buckets he’s scored are on straight-line drives, something he needs to make a habit of doing. As a freak athlete he doesn’t need to use dribble moves or shimmy-shakes to get by his man, a lot of times he can simply blow by with his wheels. We didn’t see enough of this early in the year but it seems he’s starting to realize this is one of his best options of putting points on the board.
Another way he’s getting buckets is on the offensive glass where he works tirelessly to get into space and then lets his leaping ability and length do the rest. Florida is up to 74th in the country in offensive rebounding and with Kerry Blackshear, Keyontae Johnson, and Scottie Lewis all going to glass they should continue to get second chance opportunities.
Lewis isn’t your typical 5-star McDonald’s All-American that’s going to torch defenses for points, he’s a defensive minded glue guy that’s going to do whatever it takes to win. The Gators have needed secondary scoring and Lewis has stepped up there and if he can put together consistent scoring efforts with straight line drives and offensive rebound put-backs they’ll be in great shape.
5. Much to the delight of many, Florida is starting to play faster.
Against South Carolina the Gators had 12 offensive possessions in transition, a number that isn’t particularly high when you look at it against the national average but one that’s high for Florida. The chorus of people calling for the Gators to get out and run and play faster has been loud and they should be happy with the dedication they’ve started to show in pushing it.
For the record, their 12 attempts against South Carolina yielded 14 points which is some really good efficiency.
Florida is at 0.902 points per possession in the half court and 1.033 in transition, showing just how efficient transition opportunities are considering the fact that the Gators aren’t particularly geared towards playing in transition yet still put up some good numbers. That right there shows just how lethal transition can be, when you’re not even that talented at transition and you’re putting up good numbers. If Florida continues to improve they have the athletes to run with anyone and overpower a lot of teams in transition, and there would definitely be happy viewers if they played that style of basketball.
While we’re on the topic of transition basketball I also have to bring this up—strangely, the Gators are actually quite a poor defensive team in transition this year and it has hurt their overall defensive efficiency. Get this—in the half court they are only allowing 0.787 points per possession but in transition they are allowing 1.033, which is not only strangely the exact number they are shooting offensively but is obviously much higher than the half court number. That means if Florida can keep teams out of transition they are in excellent shape defensively, and it definitely means they need to improve their defense on the run.
The difference between transition and half court basketball is an interesting one because it’s almost like two different games. Running sets in the half court almost seems like an entirely different game that transition basketball when teams are playing on the break and the numbers are always so drastically different which makes it seem even more like two different games. Florida is still working on balancing the two but they’re making strides and it looks like this group is really starting to come together.