Bad losses tend to bring out the best in Golden and the Gators

There are losses and then there are bad losses. The bad losses – there have been two of them in the past two seasons – tend to bring out the best in Todd Golden and his Florida coaching staff.

There were two bad losses a season ago – 64-44 at Tennessee and 88-83 at Georgia –  that became springboards for success. In the six games after the loss to the Vols in Knoxville, the Gators learned to compensate for injuries, which paid off during the Gators’ championship run as Tommy Haugh and Denzel Aberdeen blossomed into confident, dependable guys off the bench. After Alex Condon suffered a high ankle sprain in the opening minutes of a win at Mississippi State, Micah Handlogten burned his redshirt.

On paper, a 5-point loss to Georgia on the road doesn’t seem all that bad, but there was a point in the first half when the Gators trailed by 25. They rallied, took the lead late, and then missed a chance to score what would have been one of the more remarkable comebacks in Southeastern Conference history. Following that loss, the Gators went on a 12-game tear that took them to the national championship.

Rather than go into a funk over those two losses, the Gators self-corrected, re-focused and played with a heightened sense of urgency, particularly in the six NCAA Tournament games after the Georgia loss.

The Gators have lost seven games this season, five that were within their grasp to win and two that can only be categorized as bad losses. The bad losses – a 76-67 home court defeat at the hands of Auburn; a 91-74 loss to Vanderbilt in the semifinals of the Southeastern Conference Tournament last Saturday.

The response to the Auburn loss was a 12-game winning streak in which nine of the wins were by at least 13 points and the other three were over Kentucky, one at home, one at Rupp and one at the SEC Tournament. The Vanderbilt loss was just the second in the last two seasons in which the Gators have gone down in flames by at least 10 points.

What will be the Gators’ response to the Vandy loss Friday night (9:25 p.m., TNT) when they face the winner of the play-in game between Prairie View A&M and Lehigh in their first round NCAA Tournament game in Tampa? Any way you dissect it, that should be a win by at least 20-25 points. There is no such thing as a moral lock in NCAA play. Just ask Virginia whose 2018 loss to UMBC in the first round is the only time in the history of the NCAA Tournament that the No. 1 seed lost to a No. 16.

The better question might be how will the Gators respond Sunday when they face the winner of No. 8 Clemson and No. 9 Iowa in the second round? Whereas Prairie View and Lehigh are like layups, Clemson and Iowa are very capable of beating good teams if they get on a roll.

“I think both those teams provide different challenges,” Golden said. “Iowa's really good offensively. They have a great point guard (Bennett Stirtz), really, really good coach (Ben McCollum) that runs good stuff. And Clemson, I would say, is one of the tougher programs in America. Coach (Brad) Brownwell has done a remarkable job there.”

Against outstanding competition and with the pressure of the NCAA Tournament where a loss ends the season, can Golden get the Gators back into the groove they were in prior to the SEC Tournament in Nashville? Prior to Nashville, the Gators were playing scorched earth basketball, laying waste to whoever got in their way. In Nashville, the Gators were out of sorts offensively in a 71-63 win over Kentucky and then came the 91-74 loss to Vanderbilt.

Golden thinks yes, the Gators can regain their momentum.  

“I think we want to be consistent,” Golden said Monday. “I think we're probably a little better as a staff at holding teams accountable. We've been pretty good after wins too, so it's not that … we're just like, oh, we need a loss to get back to what we're capable of. But I do think it allows you to kind of re-center, focus on the areas that we haven't been good enough, even when we've been winning, because there are certain things

even though we have been winning the games, where we haven't been as sharp as we need to be.

“And so that's kind of what might be masked a little bit during the winning streak that we can adjust and approach right now.”

Against Kentucky, the Gators played exceptional defense in holding the Wildcats 19 points below their norm. The Vanderbilt loss had everything to do with a lack of ball security. That was a carryover from the Kentucky game, but the turnovers against Kentucky weren’t nearly as devastating.

Against Vanderbilt, the Gators turned the ball over nine times in the first half which the Commodores converted into 20 points. Eliminate the turnovers and even with a poor shooting night, the Gators could have won the game. There were opportunities to score because the Gators outrebounded Vandy by 15. The day before against Kentucky, it was a 50-29 rebounding margin.

Despite all the rebounds, however, the offense couldn’t get untracked, something that will have to improve this weekend.

“We need our offense to be better,” Golden said. “We can't turn the ball over 20 percent of the time against really good teams and expect to win.”

HAUGH MAKES THIRD TEAM ASSOCIATED PRESS ALL-AMERICA

Tommy Haugh got another All-America honor when he was named to the Associated Press third team. A week ago, Haugh was selected second team All-America by The Sporting News.

A first team All-Southeastern Conference selection by both the coaches and the Associated press, Haugh had a true breakout season, his first as a full-time starter at UF. Moved from the post to the wing by Golden prior to the beginning of the season, the junior from Pennsylvania is averaging 17.1 points, 6.2 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game.

AP All-America

First team: Cameron Boozer, Duke; Darius Acuff Jr., Arkansas; AJ Dybanta, BYU; Yaxel Lendeborg, Michigan; JT Toppin, Texas Tech

Second team: Joshua Jefferson, Iowa State; Braden Smith, Purdue; Jeremy Fears, Michigan State; Keaton Wagler, Illinois; Caleb Wilson, North Carolina

Third team: Tommy Haugh, Florida; Kingston Flemings, Houston; Labaron Philon Jr., Alabama; Christian Anderson, Texas Tech; Graham Ike, Gonzaga