A Murphy's Law kind of game; Vanderbilt sticks it to Florida

Todd Golden goes at it with KB Burnett and Pat Adams (Photo by Chris Spears)

“Anything that can go wrong will go wrong.” – Murphy’s Law

NASHVILLE, Tennessee – It is entirely possible that Murphy was an optimist or at least that’s what it seemed after the first half of the Southeastern Conference Tournament semifinal with Vanderbilt at Bridgestone Arena.

Down 47-32, the Gators still had an entire half to get back into the same groove that carried them into this game with the momentum of a 12-game winning streak. But, when AK Okereke casually nailed a 3-pointer on Vanderbilt’s first possession of the second half it had the effect of a rather large rock sinking to the pit of the stomach.

For 4^th-ranked Florida (26-7), as bad as it was in the first half, the second half was worse. Call it a bad day at the office for the Gators who will have to sweat out the reveal of the NCAA Selection Committee’s seeding decision Sunday night. The Gators are going to be in Tampa regardless of their decision, but the question is will it be a No. 1 or a No. 2? If it’s a No. 1 it will be because the committee respected Florida’s 12 Quad 1 wins and overall body of work. If it’s a No. 2, then all fingers will point to what happened Saturday when Vanderbilt became the first team all season to score a blowout win over the Florida Gators.

Final score: Vanderbilt 91, Florida 74. And really, it didn’t seem nearly that close.

The Commodores (26-7) played probably their best game of the season and in doing so may have elbowed their way to the No. 4 line when the NCAA selects. How they did it was a let’s get physical defensive effort and their three big guys – Okereke, Devin McGlockton and Jalen Washington – going 7-10 from the 3-point line.

The physicality caused the Gators to miss way too many shots in the paint. Florida corralled 20 offensive rebounds, which the Gators normally convert into 20 or more points just on stickbacks. The only problem was this wasn’t anything close to a normal day. The Gators managed only 14 second chance points, in large part because Vandy muscled up every time the Gators snagged another offensive rebound. Surrounded in the paint after hauling in a missed UF shot, the Gator big guys either missed bunnies or were forced to pass the ball out to the perimeter.

“They did a good job being physical, for sure,” Todd Golden said. “I think they knocked us off our spots. When we get 20 offensive rebounds, in theory we should be scoring 25 or even a bucket more on that. We only had 14 second-chance points.

“We fought hard on the glass. We got back over 55 percent, almost 60 percent of our misses, which is insane. We did a very poor job of taking advantage of that and getting second chances, finishing our second chances I should say.”

The 3-point shooting by the Vandy bigs came down to a game plan decision. Florida was determined to run Vandy’s typical long range bombers off the 3-point line, a plan that worked out quite well since Tyler Tanner (1-1), Duke Miles (1-3) and Tyler Nickel (1-6) were a combined 3-10, far below their norm.

Far above the norm was the way Okereke (3-5), McGlockton (3-4) and Washington (1-1) made their threes. Okereke is a decent shooter but compared to Tanner, Miles and Nickel, someone you are willing to take a chance with. McGlockton and Washington are sub-30 percent 3-point shooters, so it’s not a bad decision to give them space. The Gators did it, but on this day the strategy backfired.  

“You have to decide against a team like that, that's definitely much better on the offensive end than defensive end in terms of what you want to live with,” Golden explained. “We wanted to live with their front court shooting threes. They took advantage of it. They knocked it down. When we tried to switch defenses, they had answers.”

Compounding matters, particularly in the first half, was ball security. Florida’s nine first half turnovers were converted into 20 of Vanderbilt’s 47 points. The Gators turned it over five more times in the second half, but Vandy only scored four more points off the miscues.

When the Gators arrived in Nashville, they were on their best shooting streak of the season – 43-99 from 3-point range in the previous five games. Saturday, they were 5-17 so a combined 8-37 from the 3-point line over the two days. That’s 21.6 percent, far worse than what the Gators were shooting even during the bad days prior to the start of the SEC regular season.

In the first half, the Gators were 11-30 from the field overall and 2-8 from three. In the second half, the Gators were an improved 15-27 but only 3-9 from three. They needed to make threes to fire up a comeback attempt, but Vandy did a good job of limiting three attempts while contesting those the Gators did squeeze off.

Two days in Nashville, 145 combined points. You have to go back to the losses to Duke (66 points) and UConn (73) for consecutive games in which the Gators had such difficulty putting points on the scoreboard.

The point production has a direct correlation to the ball security issues. The Gators turned it over 18 times in the win over Kentucky on Friday, turning a potential 30-point blowout into a game that was much too close for comfort. Saturday, the combination of turnovers and the inability to stick the ball back in the basket after offensive rebounds had a rather haunting effect. Points the Gators typically count on were rare.

The turnovers were the great concern for Golden. Earlier in the year when the Gators were 5-4 after the back-to-back losses to Duke and UConn, and even after the first SEC game of the year, a 2-point road loss at Missouri, turnovers were an issue. In recent weeks, Florida’s ball security improved which led to the Gators typically scoring in the 90s and winning games by 13 or more points.

“My biggest disappointment of the last two days was our ball security,” Golden said. “That's an area that we have been making shots. We've been pretty good offensively, top 10 offense all year. We can't be a team that just gives up offensive possessions.

“Again, in the first half I think we had nine or something. It led to 20 points for Vanderbilt. I mean, you're not giving yourself a chance to win with that ball security issue that's getting them 20 points in transition, free looks. They're too good of a team and they're going to take advantage of that every time.”

The Gators outrebounded Kentucky 50-29 and won that game by eight points. They outrebounded Vanderbilt 38-23. When you pound a team that way – and pounding is indeed the only way to describe it – you shouldn’t have one game in which you feel fortunate to win and a second game in which you get blown out.

So, it is time to get back home, get back to the practice gym and re-focus on what’s important. The Gators may have lost the SEC Tournament, which certainly was a disappointment, but the goal of a repeat national championship is still possible. When focused and playing at the same level that got them the SEC regular season championship by three full games in the standings, the Gators are as good or better than every other team in the country.

When they’re turning the ball over, letting other teams frustrate them with physical play that causes the 3-man zebra crew to be a bit selective in how they toot their whistles, the Gators can be had. Golden sees what’s ahead and knows what has to happen prior to the first NCAA game.

“Again, we get back tonight, we'll take tomorrow (Sunday) off, probably watch the Selection Show together, get back to practice on Monday,” Golden said. “Again, we try to be very consistent with our program. We're not going to be reactive in regards to when we're winning that we don't practice hard, and we kind of go with the flow, we're okay, as soon as we lose we're going to change everything, be really aggressive in practice.

“Part of what makes our program what it is is our consistency. We are not going to change a lot. We are going to get back to defending, rebounding, taking care of the ball.”

Alex Condon, who had 13 points, seven rebounds and two assists, admitted frustration with the way some of the physical nature of the game played out, but he put what happened against Vandy and what’s ahead in perspective.

“I think they made an effort to be really physical from the jump,” Condon said. “I know in some of our elbow-catching plays, I was getting elbowed in the back. A lot of rebounding. They made a big emphasis to try and out-physical us. That's our identity, defense and bringing physicality.

“Credit to them, they did a good job, but it's fueling the fire for us. I think it's not the worst thing in the world to have a little wake-up call this time of year. I know everyone's going to be super motivated this week in practice, not let this affect our March performance.”

Definitely, the fire needs to be re-fueled this week. What we saw Saturday bore little resemblance to the team that did a scorched earth run through the SEC. What the Gators are capable of doing will be determined by their ability to get their mojo back ahead of the first NCAA weekend.

GAME NOTES: Tommy Haugh led the Gators with 19 points, nine rebounds, three assists, one steal and one blocked shot … Boogie Fland scored 15, Condon 13 and Chinyelu 12 … Florida had 13 assists and 14 turnovers. Vanderbilt, on the other hand, had 21 assists on 30 made shots and turned the ball over just eight times … Tanner led the scoring for Vandy with 20 points, while Washington had 17 and Miles 13.