Golden Wants Gators To Run Where The Buffalo Roam. No Foul Play.

Gators Need Is A Little Pick-Me-Up Today

If Todd Golden has his way, Florida’s first round South Region game with Colorado (25-10) will be the basketball version of a track meet.

“We want to get this game up and down a little bit and see if they can run with us,” Golden said Thursday afternoon in Indianapolis. “When we’re at our best we’re playing that way.”

In the Gators’ run to the championship game of the Southeastern Conference Tournament, the Gators (24-11) averaged 94 points a game. They lit up Alabama for 102, the second time they had scored 100 or more against the Crimson Tide, which are a No. 4 seed in the West Region.

Colorado got to this game by winning a 10-seed play-in game with Boise State Wednesday night. The game was a slow-paced, 63-60, rock fight in which the two teams combined to shoot 6-33 from the 3-point line. Colorado was 4-15 but 6-9 Tristan da Silva was 3-6 beyond the arc.

It was grinding, physical and quite boring. Golden will want to run until Colorado’s players are grasping their shorts while trying to catch their collective breath. Colorado will be very happy to pound away defensively and on the boards. Offensively, the point guard KJ Simpson (19 points, 11 rebounds against Boise) controls the pace. He can slash his way to the rim but he’s a 44.6 percent shooter from the 3-point line.

Simpson is 6-6, da Silva 6-9 and center Eddie Lambkin Jr. is 6-11, 265. This is a big team the Gators have to contend with and they’ll be without 7-1 Micah Handlogten, who fractured his leg in the SEC championship game with Auburn. Handlogten’s absence tightens the interior rotation although Golden has said 6-10, 250-pound Aleks Szymczyk, who hasn’t played this season while rehabbing a broken foot that required surgery, is available for minutes should he need to give Tyrese Samuel, Alex Condon and Thomas Haugh some rest.

A concern is foul trouble. When Handlogten sprained his ankle in the opening minutes of the Pittsburgh game, then missed the next two, Golden was forced to play Condon and Haugh probably before they were ready. They were freshmen playing against veterans yet the Gators managed to play through it. Florida beat Pittsburgh, had Baylor on the ropes before falling by four and the only reason Wake Forest won by double figures had everything to do with a late rash of free throws.

The Buffaloes have the big guy (Lambkin) in the middle and both Silva and Simpson will put the ball on the deck and go to the rack, forcing opponents’ big guys to defend shooters.

“Obviously it's a variable that we have to deal with, but the great thing is our depth in the front court has been a big positive for us all year,” Golden said. “And we'll start Alex Condon tomorrow next to Tyrese (Samuel), and Tommy (Haugh) will get minutes, and we'll probably show small-ball lineups tomorrow, as well, just to make sure we have enough depth to survive out there all game. Next-man-up mentality, and I think Aleks will be ready to go for sure.

“We've got to figure out ways to prevent ourselves from getting in foul trouble tomorrow. Early on – sorry, I shouldn't say early on, but before Micah's injury we could play through some foul trouble and know we have depth at both the four and the five to be able to steal minutes if we need to, whereas we don't have that luxury tomorrow as much. We'll try to find some ways to keep – specifically Tyrese and Condo out of foul trouble. Tommy does a pretty good job of that. But we've got to be mindful of that over the course of the game for sure.”

At least in their win over Boise, Colorado didn’t foul. That’s what the stat sheet says anyway. Boise State, which is a long, physical team in its own right, managed to get to the line for only six free throws, this in spite of 19 offensive rebounds. Offensive rebounds usually equate to free throws but either the Buffaloes didn’t foul or the zebra crew swallowed its whistles. Often.

This is a game that Florida can win, and quite frankly, should win even minus Handlogten. Colorado is a good team with some good players but Florida has played so well down the stretch that it is hard to imagine the Gators will lay an egg.

Golden seemed confident and not the least bit cocky talking to the media Thursday. The Gators have gotten consistently better on an almost week-to-week basis. Last week they won three in a row in Nashville. Today against Colorado, it’s the first game of a one-and-done tournament. You can’t win a championship the first day, but you can see your season come to an end.

“Obviously, Colorado is going to be a really tough opponent,” Golden said. “They should have some confidence after their win last night, but we'll be ready for them, and again, I think this team has the capacity to make a run, if things go our way tomorrow.”

Anticipated starting lineups

FLORIDA (24-11): 6-10 Tyrese Samuel (14 points, 7.5 rebounds); 6-11 Alex Condon (7.7 points, 6.3 rebounds); 6-4 Will Richard (11.3 points, 4.0 rebounds); 6-2 Walter Clayton Jr. (17.1 points, 3.6 rebounds); 6-4 Zyon Pullin (15.6 points, 4.0, 4.9 assists)

COLORADO (25-10): 6-8 Luke O’Brien (6.5 points, 3.8 rebounds); 6-11 Eddie Lambkin Jr. (10.3 points, 7.1 rebounds); 6-9 Tristan da Silva (15.9 points, 5.1 rebounds); 6-6 J’Vonne Hadley (11.6 points, 6.0 rebounds); 6-2 KJ Simpson (19.6 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.8 assists)

SEC BASKETBALL: BAD DAY AT BLACK ROCK

Imagine how embarrassing a day it would have been for the Southeastern Conference if not for Tennessee blowing the doors off St. Peter’s. The SEC, billed all year as the near equal of the mighty Big 12, was 0-3 Thursday before the Vols saved the league from an oh-fer. Mississippi State was hosed by a Michigan State team that is only in the tournament as a lifetime achievement award for Tom Izzo. South Carolina, which prided itself on defense all year, left its defensive owners manual back in the hotel. No one had a clue against a decent, but not exactly a world beater of an Oregon team.

Then came Kentucky. How is it a team that has at least seven future No. 1 draft picks on its roster can give up 10 3-pointers to one shooter from a team like Oakland, whose signature win was by two points over a Xavier team that lost in the first round of the NIT to Georgia? Third-seed Kentucky lost to a 14 seed for the second time in three years.

Perhaps Mississippi State dipped into its energy reservoirs so deeply just trying to get into the NCAA Tournament that there was nothing left in the tank. Perhaps South Carolina was just so happy to be there after being picked dead last by the preseason media that it was deer in the headlights.

Perhaps.

So how do we explain Kentucky? We can’t. This is a team with Final Four talent that never grasped the concept that on those nights when your shooting is off, you find other ways to compensate so you can still win the game.

That brings us to today. Florida, Auburn, Alabama and the Aggies are carrying the torch for the SEC. They all four have winnable games. All four need to show up. Anything less than a 4-0 Friday will be serious embarrassment for the league.

Thursday’s scores

Michigan State (20-14) 69, Mississippi State (21-14) 51, West Region

Oregon (24-11) 87, South Carolina (26-8) 73, Midwest Region

Oakland (24-11) 80, Kentucky (23-10) 76, South Region

Tennessee (25-8) 83, Saint Peter’s (19-14) 49

Friday’s games

Colorado (25-10) vs. FLORIDA (24-11), South Region

Yale (22-9) vs. Auburn (27-7), East Region

Charleston (27-7) vs. Alabama (21-11), West Region

Texas A&M (20-14) vs. Nebraska (23-10), South Region

SEC basketball in the transfer portal

Alabama: PG Houston Mallette (6-5, 180, JR) from Pepperdine

Arkansas: PG Keon Menifield (6-1, 150, SO); F Denijay Harris (6-7, 200, SR); WG Joseph Pinion (6-6, 195, SO); SG Davonte Davis (6-4, 175, SR); PG Layden Blocker (6-2, 175, FR)

Mississippi State: PG Andrew Taylor (6-3, 190, SR)

Missouri: PF Jacob Crews (6-8, 210, JR), from UT-Martin; SG Curt Lewis (6-5, 215, JR)

Ole Miss: C Malique Ewin (6-10, 220, SO); PF Rashaud Marshall (6-8, 220, FR)

Vanderbilt: PG Paul Lewis (6-2, 170, SO); C Lee Dort (6-10, 245, SO); SG Tyrin Lawrence (6-4, 200, SR); PF Colin Smith (6-8, 220, SO)

THE LAST WORD ON AN NCAA THURSDAY

Take a moment and watch the play that decided the Samford-Kansas game. It’s as clean a block on a fast break as you will ever see, yet someone in the zebra crew of Tony Padilla, Wil Howard and Lamar Simpson called it a foul on Samford’s AJ Stanton-McCray. It wasn’t close. It should have been Samford’s basketball with 14.7 seconds and a chance to win the game with a layup or a jump shot. Instead, Kansas got two free throws and basically sealed a win.

There is no way to challenge a rotten call and that was a rotten call. The kids from Samford, who had come from 22 points down to within a point deserved so much better. Kansas might have still won the game, but the Jayhawks might have lost, too. We’ll never know.

This has been a year in which I’ve been more vocal than ever about bad officiating, probably because I can’t recall a year in which I’ve watched more games in which the zebras were so incompetent. I keep seeing badly officiated games and I’m not just talking Florida games. People who know me know I’m a college basketball junkie so if there is a game on, I’m usually watching. Too often, I’m left shaking my head at the ineptitude of the men in striped shirts.

The same zebras keep on having bad games, too. Apparently, there is no punishment for having a bad game, much less a bad season. I can think of at least 10 SEC zebras who shouldn’t be allowed to officiate a pickup game at the YMCA.

I don’t have the answers to the problems I see with officiating in college basketball, but I think a good place to start would be to ratchet down the physicality by calling fouls when bodies start banging. Foul a few guys out and maybe the game wouldn’t resemble something that only Gordon Solie could describe adequately. I would like to see the “Eurostep” taken out of the game. It’s walking. Period. How about a 3-second call? How about calling moving screens? Some of these guys look like Jerry Kramer and Fuzzy Thurston leading the Lombardi sweep the way they block so a teammate can have a clear path to the basket.

I can wish. Meanwhile, I wish there was a way for those Samford kids to walk away win or lose knowing they got a fair shake. I also wish the NCAA, in its infinite wisdom, would tell Wil Howard, Tony Padilla and Lamar Simpson that they won’t be calling any more games in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.