We played them dead even in the second half, but the first half was too much to overcome. Note: If we see them again in Nashville, try playing the first half a little better.
They’re nationally ranked, and should be. We’re not, and shouldn’t be. We put up a fight, even with some defensive lapses, but putting the ball in the hole was our issue.
The stats says it all. We shot horrible. FTs were not the nemesis. TT wasn’t a factor because of found trouble. I was hoping for a win but when you shoot in the 30s and they shoot in the 50s, hard to win. We had way more FTs also. Just a bad night to get cold.
Yes, if we had come into this game ready to play from the tip-off, we would have a great shot at a win. I don’t know what Mike’s speech to the team is before tip-off, but he needs to come up with a different speech.
Even in this 7-3 stretch we’ve had in the last 10 SEC games, we’ve been behind in virtually every game in the first half and have had to come back in the 2nd half to win those 7 games. In those 10 games we’ve averaged 34 points in the first half and 45 points in the 2nd half. You can win doing that against average, but not really good teams. You just can’t get behind 16 points against a very good FL team and expect to make that kind of comeback. Especially on the road.
We made 2 good runs in the 2nd half to cut the lead to 6 twice, but then the refs jumped in and helped FL stop those runs. I’m a bit disappointed in the loss, but not disappointed in the way the Hogs played in the 2nd half.
Florida missed their first shot, got an immediate putback and then hit their next five shots after that, including two threes. That made it 14-6. I don’t think we ever got closer than 6 after that. Too many points in the paint for them by a long shot.
It seemed like the quickness of their guards caused some problems early. But the biggest things were their shots were going down, and ours weren’t. Hate to lose–really hate to lose the way we did by getting behind so early–but it’s a road game against one of the top teams in the nation. Still trying to learn how to win in those kinds of atmospheres.
We didn’t match their Senior Night intensity to open the game. They’re faster, but we weren’t moving like we should have been. We probably weren’t going to win if they were going to convert 10 of 23 from the arc. In some ways encouraging that we made a game of it with them shooting that well. We needed them to clunk a few. However, it was disappointing that we gave up so much inside. We hadn’t been doing that lately.
This is all true that has been posted. We don’t have guards that can stay in front of good guards. We did not make shots but we also had people with the ball that took shot that were not our offensive weapons.
We did not attempt early to go inside out and it bite us. It’s one game. Don’t worry about it. This team has some young parts and when we are knocking down shots our defense is better.
There were calls that stopped our runs and non calls where we were fouled and no calls. The call aginst Mosses was the turning point that stopped us. That was 2 points and a free throw. The refs have never given the hogs a fair shake even in 1994 and 1995. We are the step kids in the stepchildren in the SEC. As well as in football. Get used to it. What we need to do is support our hogs and remember we are getting better and we have talented kids coming in the next few years that will make it to where we will be dishing out the lumps.
Beat Georgia. WPS!!!
Our Man defense gave away the game EARLY. Moses was guarding on the perimeter with Thomas somewhere around the basket, so Allen and Hill blew past Moses for easy layups and the GATORS killed us on the boards. The gators got on an emotional high on SENIOR day because of all the easy shots. Good lord they were shooting 75% against our man defense which is infamous against good guards…much less great guards like Hill, Chiozza and Allen. I have no idea why you wait until we are down 16 before we switched to a zone… I thought that after a minute or two he would switch up defenses to throw off the gator guards…but NOPE not at all.
I saw frustration on our team from the first few possession when UF was getting one easy shot after another or an easy rebound. Moses looked like he was pissed from the start and terribly frustrated. We are comfortable in the zone and our Bigs play much better in the ZONE. I saw the same frustrated faces on our team that were there before we switched to more zone a few weeks ago. It was like, “here we go again, he’s making us play this man defense that kills us. We can’t switch and rotate like we should so there is always someone open to kill us”.
We start in Man which is a major blunder as far as this season has proven…and we stayed in MAN until the SENIOR day emotions exploded with easy layups and dunks. After the last few weeks of progress with the Zone, you would think that we would start with man against weaker guards only? Theoretically Zone is terrible against a good shooting team, but our MAN defense is soooo bad that our ZONE is more effective. ZONE would have been worth trying quickly to disrupt the gators, and it was proven that we played better when we DID switch.