By Will Miles
Omar Payne and John Fulkerson
Florida forward Omar Payne delivered an elbow to John Fulkerson in the Gators SEC tournament loss to Tennessee. It looked intentional.
Payne reached out to Fulkerson and Fulkerson tweeted that he accepted Payne’s apology. That’s great, as we’ve all reacted poorly in the heat of the battle and there’s no doubt that Fulkerson was clutching and grabbing during the game. But trying to explain away the behavior as just part of the competitive landscape misses the point as well.
Not only did Payne throw an intentional elbow, he also hurt Fulkerson to the point where he had a facial fracture and was wearing ear plugs at Tennessee’s next game against Alabama. The earplugs in particular suggest that Fulkerson was in the concussion protocol. Given what we know about head injuries, it’s hard to see this as just letting guys shake hands and move on with their lives.
Payne was ejected from the game (as he should have been). But I’m curious to see whether Mike White has some additional discipline for his player even though the next game is the NCAA tournament. The reality is that discipline has been a problem for Florida in more ways than just the Payne incident. I think it’s probably wise to sit him down for at least a game.
We’ll see what White does.
NCAA 7-Seed for Florida
Even after losing two of its final four games, Florida was given a 7-seed and a more favorable matchup than many pundits were originally projecting.
Those two losses were both to Tennessee, a team that was highly regarded when Florida beat the Volunteers earlier in the season but has struggled down the stretch.
This marks the fourth time Mike White has made it to the tournament, with the only years he hasn’t due to the pandemic last season and an invitation to the NIT in his first season in Gainesville. Of course, this is also his second-lowest seeding since he took over as well, with a 4-seed in 2017, a 6-seed in 2018, and 10-seed in 2019 and now a 7-seed in 2021.
They’re in the dance, but history isn’t all that kind to 7-seeds.
Only one has ever won the whole thing, 2014 Connecticut. That squad – led by Shabazz Napier – was certainly flawed, but they also finished the year 32-8 and entered the tournament ranked 19th in the AP Poll.
As of 2017, seventh seeded teams had lost 55 opening round games to the 10-seed. The tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985, so that’s a won/loss record of 73-55, hardly all that inspiring. South Carolina – in a story that should be familiar to White – was a 7-seed who made the Final Four with wins over 2-seed Duke, 3-seed Baylor and 4-seed Florida.
And that’s probably the biggest thing to take from the seeding. If Florida can get by Virginia Tech in the opening round, there are going to be much, much better teams waiting in the wings.
Alabama and Arkansas are probably the only teams on Florida’s schedule who compare to the 1-3 seed in the South bracket (Baylor, Ohio State and Arkansas). The Gators didn’t come close to beating either of those teams.
Tre Mann and……
The loss of Keyontae Johnson certainly hurt the Gators. And absolutely the way that the Gators lost Johnson is what makes his absence so tough to swallow.
Yet, Mike White has recruited well and so you’d expect someone to be able to step up in his absence and take some of the pressure off of Tre Mann. That just hasn’t happened.
Mann has regularly been relied upon to bring a bulk of the scoring (16.0 ppg) and really seems like the only Gator who is regularly able to get his own shot. Perhaps I misspoke earlier though, because Mann is someone who has stepped up in Johnson’s absence, raising his per-game scoring by nearly 11 points per game compared to last season.
But here’s the deal. The minute Keyontae Johnson went down, Florida needed Scottie Lewis to step up his game in the same way. Instead, Lewis’ per-game scoring is down 0.6 points this season. His three-point shooting has gone from decent (36.1%) to poor (30%) and after a promising first six games (14.0 ppg), Lewis has scored in double digits just twice. He finished the season with one total point in the two SEC tournament games.
Tre Mann isn’t going to be enough from the guard position for Florida to win, even against Virginia Tech. Lewis is going to have to bring some level of scoring for the Gators to compete. He hasn’t done that since January 2. But it’s the Gators only hope of advancing far in the tournament.
Match-up with Virginia Tech
This one is fun for me. Both of my grandparents taught at Virginia Tech. We visited Blacksburg every summer that I can remember. And then after undergrad at Florida, I went to Virginia Tech for grad school.
People think of Florida as a football school, but Virginia Tech has the same classification. The difference is that the highest highs the football team has accomplished is getting to the national championship game in 1999 with Michael Vick as opposed to winning it three times.
But make no mistake: Blacksburg is a football town.
The Hokies come into the game with a 15-6 record in what is usually a vastly superior conference. But the ACC is down this year with Clemson and Virginia (21 and 22) the highest ranked ACC schools in the RPI. Of course, Virginia Tech beat both of those teams, along with 23rd ranked Villanova. The Gators only have one win of that quality (#19 LSU).
I’ve harped on point differential all season long, and Tech has a differential of 6.6 compared to Florida’s differential of 4.2. The Hokies also have seven players averaging more than 7.5 points per game. Not counting Keyontae Johnson, the Gators have 5.
That’s a problem for a team that when it has struggled has done so on the defensive end. If the Hokies were just reliant on one player, perhaps White could scheme around stopping him. But that isn’t the case here.
I suspect Tech is a better team in general. But the diversity of scoring options is what makes me think that picking the 10-7 upset here is the wise choice.
Evaluation of Mike White
So what happens if Mike White loses to the Hokies?
Well, first off, I don’t think you evaluate a coach on one game. I also don’t think you evaluate a coach on how he does in the NCAA Tournament (some might have gotten rid of Billy Donovan early on were that the evaluation method). Instead, I think you look at the totality of the resume to make a decision.
White likely received a reprieve last season due to the COVID-19 cancellation. A large portion of the fan base wanted him gone but without a March run to evaluate, most rational fans were willing to give White another year. Those fans’ patience has certainly been tested this season, but again there are extenuating circumstances given Keyontae Johnson going down so early in the season.
But if you follow Gator basketball much at all, you have seen tweets like this from Eric Fawcett recently.
Gators used pick and roll on 39% of possessions and were at 0.64 points per possession on those plays. Despite it not working, the team just doesn’t have much in the playbook other than constant pick and rolls right now.
— Eric Fawcett (@Efawcett7) March 12, 2021
The reality is that we should have seen improvement by now. Six years is a long time to prove how good you are, even with the COVID cancellation and the injuries this year. Everyone had to deal with COVID. Everyone has to deal with injuries to some extent. Being in the top-64 in the country isn’t good enough for Florida in any other sport, as this is an athletic program that prides itself on SEC and National Championships.
Like it or not, that’s the standard. White hasn’t lived up to that yet. I suspect he has this tournament to prove he deserves to stay.
Baseball – SEC play about to begin
SEC play is about to begin for the Florida baseball team and the pitching continues to flummox the #5 Gators.
A loss to an underperforming Florida State team on Tuesday night dropped the Gators to 13-5, which isn’t bad. But in those five losses, the Gators have surrendered more than 8 runs four times. In the loss to FSU, Garrett Milchin – who came into the game with a 2.00 ERA – gave up 7 runs in 1.2 innings.
The offense is devastating, averaging over 8 runs per game. But that isn’t going to be enough when the pitching staff is giving up 8 runs itself every four or five times out.
Starter Hunter Barco has really struggled, with a 5.95 ERA in 19.1 IP. Jack Leftwich, Tommy Mace and Milchin have all been very good, but the 16-man staff has 7 pitchers with ERAs over 4.5. Ouch.
I think the Gators will get this figured out. They’re too talented not to. But amid all of the home runs from Jud Fabian and the hitting streak from Jacob Young, the Gators are playing an entertaining form of baseball but aren’t really playing a winning form, at least not to win consistently.
The old baseball adage is that momentum is only as good as tomorrow’s starting pitcher. Never has that been more true than in 2021 with this Gators baseball team.
Softball – Second loss to Kentucky
The Gators softball team dropped its second game of the season against Kentucky.
There’s no shame in that. The Wildcats are a top-10 team, the Gators took 2 out of 3 in the series, and the loss came in extra innings, with the Gators forcing OT with a 2-run seventh inning rally.
The story continues to be the Gators pitchers, as they only gave up one run in each of their two wins over Kentucky (and only 4 in the loss). And again, having multiple pitchers throw so well is really positioning the team to make a deep run come May.
At 17-2, that’s pretty much all the team is playing for. They’re clearly one of the best teams in the country. Now it’s a matter of fine-tuning things to be ready for the SEC and Women’s College World Series tournaments.
2022 Recruiting Buzz
There’s been quite a bit of buzz around Florida recently regarding recruiting and the 2022 class.
Tight end C.J. Hawkins committed this past weekend and normally an unranked tight end wouldn’t be a whole lot to get worked up about. But Hawkins is 6’7” and has offers in football from Alabama and in basketball from some mid-major programs. Having Saban on your tail after only playing one year of football in high school means there’s a ton of potential here.
The other recent commit is an interesting case in QB Nick Evers. Anyone who watches tape of Evers comes away impressed, myself included. He’s currently a 3-star commit but I expect that ranking to increase as he gets more exposure. We should also note that rankings are going to change quite a bit this year as many of these players weren’t necessarily evaluated during COVID the way they might have been in previous seasons.
I am a big believer that completion percentage translates from high school to college. That’s a good sign for Florida as Evers completed 68% of his throws. This tells me he makes good decisions with the football. However, Evers only averaged 8.4 yards per attempt on 271 throws. This tells me he may not have the arm strength to really push the ball down the field.
In fact, Evers’ stats look a lot like another QB Florida fans recently had a love/hate relationship with: Luke Del Rio. Del Rio completed 70% of his throws for 8.9 yards per attempt his senior year of high school. That’s the profile of a game manager, not a game changer.
But Evers still has his senior year. That yards per attempt is what I’d watch. If he can increase that to 10 or 11 while maintaining his accuracy, he has a chance to be really, really good.
Emory Jones’ struggles this spring
Speaking of throwing the ball down the field, Emory Jones has been getting some Gators fans nervous as reports out of spring practice are that he is struggling.
I wrote about this in-depth at my site this week and how this shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, Jones redshirted in 2018 and only had limited packages (and thus, likely limited reps) during the season. Then came 2019 when Mullen had to focus on getting Trask ready to go after the injury to Feleipe Franks. Then COVID knocked out spring practice last year and the Gators offense could never get the reserves in because the defense kept everything too close for comfort.
So if you really think about it, this is the first spring where Jones isn’t getting third-team reps.
That doesn’t mean he’s going to be a fantastic passer in 2021. In fact, he might really struggle. But that’s part of the beauty of the way Dan Mullen runs his offense. It is designed to put the defense in situations where it has to make choices and then exploit them regardless of the choice they make.
The choices the defense will have to make in 2021 will be way different than the ones they had to make in 2020 with Kyle Trask under center, but the principles are the same. Jones averaged 6.8 yards per rush last season and showed he is a true threat running the ball. That’s going to open up not only the passing game but the running game as well.
He doesn’t have to throw the ball like Kyle Trask (though we should not he absolutely could because the sample size is so small we don’t really know how he’ll perform). He just has to make the right read based on the look the defense is giving him.
Go back and watch the SEC Championship Game again. On almost every offensive snap, Kadarius Toney was in motion. That motion made Alabama declare what they were going to do and Trask picked them apart. Mullen will figure out a way to help Jones in the same way.
Offensive Line Optimism
Fans are really down on the Florida offensive line.
In some ways, I get it. The line struggled to open holes at times last season and the team was unable to just run up and down the field. Combine with that Jean Delance’s return and fans are concerned.
But the offensive line wasn’t really all that bad last year, at least not based on advanced metrics. Football Outsiders compiles offensive line stats for FBS teams and the Gators ranked 46th in opportunity rate, a stat designed to measure how often the line did its job in the running game.
That isn’t dominant, but it’s above average.
I think what fans saw in 2020 were catastrophic failures at times. Completely missed blocks, not knowing assignments, moving too slowly when unsure of blitz pickups or how to hand off a stunt. You know, the kinds of things you focus on and drill during spring practice.
I’m not saying the Gators O-line is going to be dominant in 2021. But they’re going to have Jones holding the backside defensive end on every read-option. They’re going to have more explosive running backs hitting the hole in Lorenzo Lingard and Demarkcus Bowman. They’re going to have a full offseason in Nick Savage’s strength and conditioning program.
I’m optimistic that the catastrophic failures will be far fewer in 2021 and that the metrics are going to match the film much more closely.