An Exhibition Loss Gives Golden Plenty Of Material To “Coach ‘Em Up”
Cover: Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media
By Franz Beard
JACKSONVILLE – Start with the obvious. It was an exhibition game, the college basketball version of what happens every March in Florida and Arizona when Major League Baseball teams prep for April when the games count for real.
So while the Baylor Bears got an 82-76 win over the No. 1 preseason Florida Gators at the VyStar Veterans Memorial Arena, it doesn't count in the grand scheme of things.
That doesn't mean for even a nanosecond that Todd Golden will shrug this one off. Hardly. However, he walked away Sunday afternoon with a list of must correct this notations to fill a couple of legal pads. For example, the Gators made only 25 of their 72 shots from the field. That's not good. Even worse, however, was the three-point shooting. Take away the 2-6 by Tommy Haugh and the 1-1 by Boogie Fland and the rest of the team was 1-22. In this new era of college basketball in which the game is all about threes and layups, that is the ultimate recipe for disaster. Then there was the foul line where the Gators were anything but clutch, 62.9 percent at 22-35 with a bunch of critical misses late regulation.
So, on an afternoon in which the couldn't find the ocean if they were standing on the end of the pier, they still could have and should have beaten Baylor, which is indeed a quality opponent. Even if it wouldn't have counted had they made a few more shots.
Todd Golden wasn't happy and he shouldn't have been, but he has another exhibition game with Stetson next Tuesday (Oct. 27) and the games don't start counting for real until Nov. 2 when the Gators play Miami in Tampa in the regular season opener.
"My hope is that we can use this as an opportunity to grow with a couple more weeks before the regular season," Golden said. "Yeah, I mean, I would prefer to teach after a win than a loss always. After today's game, it does change our mentality moving forward probably a little bit, two and a half weeks until the regular season starts, and yeah, I think you can learn a lot from these games. That's why we wanted to play a really good opponent like Baylor to kind of see how we looked against somebody else. When you practice against your own team, great athleticism and quickness and do things differently, which they did, and I thought they bothered us a little bit."
Yes, Baylor bothered the Gators. Injuries depleted Scott Drew's front court so he went small with a scrambling defense that tried to force Florida's guards out beyond their comfort zone, fronted Florida's big guys whenever possible and trapped on the wings and in the corners. It was bothersome although it didn't result in turning the Gators over very much. The Gators committed only eight turnovers and those were converted into four points.
When the ball did go inside to Alex Condon and Rueben Chinyelu Baylor brought the double team from the backside. While it might have reduced scoring opportunities for Condon and Chinyelu it left openings on the perimeter that the Gators failed to exploit.
Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media
"I don't think their double teams bothered us a whole lot, to be honest," Golden said. "I thought that when we were able to get it inside, whether it was to Rueben or Condo, when they did bring the baseline double, it actually opened up the weak side of the floor, and they did a pretty good job for the majority of the game of getting it up and out to an open shooter."
Open shooters have to at least knock down a reasonable number of shots, however. That's something the Gators didn't do.
"One for 13 [from three] in the first half on what we thought were about 10 uncontested looks," Golden lamented. "So we left a lot of points on the board that way."
Points were there to be had in the second half and overtime as well, but there was only slight improvement (3-16 from three) when there were plenty enough makeable shots that wouldn't go down. Shooters you expect to make shots when they were wide open missed consistently.
Denzel Aberdeen, a good shooter throughout his career, was 3-17 from the field overall, 0-10 from the three-point line. He did make the shot with 0:00.8 left in regulation that sent the game into overtime, which was a positive along with going 9-10 from the foul line although the only miss was with 20 seconds to go. Make that one and the last second pull-up shot from the left baseline is the game-winner. Aberdeen scored 15 points but had to take 27 shots – 10 threes, seven twos, 10 at the foul line – to get them.
"I think he needs to be better. He was 3-17. He did not make a three, took 10 of them. I thought defensively he was good, not great. So, first game back, I'm sure there was a lot of emotions for him and just trying to get back comfortable. He'll play better moving forward."
Tommy Haugh, who led the Gators with 19 points, was 4-13 from the field overall, 2-6 from three and 9-10 from the foul line. Two of his misses on threes were of the rim out variety.
Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media
Alex Condon (6-11 from the field, 0-2 from three) and Rueben Chinyelu (6-9 from the field) made most of their shots and scored on the inside. Chinyelu grabbed 15 rebounds and Condon pulled down nine. It was a physical game and it seemed they should have gotten to the foul line more than nine times combined, but they didn't take advantage of the opportunities they had. They were a combined 2-9 from the foul line, Condon 1-6 and Chinyelu 1-3.
Boogie Fland scored 13 on 5-8 shooting overall, made his only three early in overtime, and finished with two rebounds, three assists, a blocked shot and a steal. What he couldn't do was push the tempo. Golden wanted a faster pace, but Baylor succeeded in keeping the Gators from getting the ball out in transition, successfully negating a speed advantage. A stronger rebounding effort – while the Gators outrebounded Baylor 46-41 overall, the Bears had a 28-21 advantage in the second half and overtime – might have helped the Gators push the pace.
"Our team, I think, strives a lot this year in getting out of transition, and pushing the ball, getting into quick screens, and today we were walking the ball up, and it wasn't how we were going to play," Haugh said. "It was our fault. Yeah, it was us."
And then there was the bench or to put it mildly a lack of production from the reserves. Golden went with a nine-man rotation, the bulk of the bench minutes going to Urban Klavzar, Isaiah Brown and AJ Brown. Viktor Mikic got in for one minute in the first half, committed a foul and then spent the rest of the game riding the pine. The others who got in the game were more productive but not by much. Klavzar, last year's SEC Sixth Man of the Year and a 40.6-percent shooter from beyond the arc last season, hung a bagel. He was 0-7 overall, 0-5 from three. Isaiah Brown, who has been having an exceptional preseason in practice, went 0-3, 0-2 from three. AJ Brown made one of his three attempts from beyond the arc.
When the bench contributes three points and goes 1-14 from the field it isn't exactly conducive to winning. Golden admitted that he has to consider getting more of his bench involved.
"We've got to look at some other guys, too, that didn't get an opportunity today that have been playing pretty well in practice," he said.
Defense was an issue in the second half. The Gators did a good job defending and running the Bears off the three-point line in the first half when they shot 1-6. In the second half and overtime, however, Baylor went 6-11, and Kayden Mingo finished the game with a scorching 31 points.
Photo by Chris Spears, GatorBait Media
Held to five points in the first half, Mingo lit up the Gators for 17 in the second half when he hit one of his three three-point attempts and then in overtime when he went 1-1 from deep and had nine of Baylor's 14. It didn't matter who guarded him – at least five Gators gave it a go – because he was in a shooter's coma when anything and everything he threw up at the rim looked good.
Another negative for the Gators was ball movement.
"I thought we were pounding a little too much, unable to get side to side, which is something that we do really well," Golden said.
There were a lot of negatives for the Gators, but nothing that can't be corrected. And, while the bad shooting was alarming, guys like Aberdeen and Klavzar have a history of making shots and the Gators have been good in the clutch at the foul line particularly the last two seasons.
Finally, it can't be overlooked that this was an exhibition game. Just last year, eventual NCAA champ Michigan lost an exhibition game to Cincinnati. Cincinnati finished with an overall record of 18-15 and didn't make the NCAA Tournament. Michigan went 37-3, winning its six NCAA Tournament games by a combined 114 points.
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