The second year of the Mike White era will begin in Jacksonville on Friday night at 7:30 p.m. ET as the Gators men's basketball team will face off against Florida Gulf Coast. The season-opener against the Eagles will be the first of 11 non-conference road games to start the season for Florida.
With renovations being done in the Stephen O’Connell Center, Florida won’t play their first home game until Dec. 21. For the first eight games, the Gators will travel all around the state of Florida as they will make stops in New York, Jacksonville, Lakeland, Tampa and Orlando, among other cities. According to White, the players understand the tough task ahead of them and the coaching staff has adapted their plans to combat the vigorous schedule.
“Our guys, they read a lot. You can’t keep it from them," Mike White said. “They understand we’re going to be doing a lot of traveling. We’ve talked to them a lot about some of the some of the ideas we’ve come up with to try and alleviate mental and physical fatigue; shortening practices, shorting film at times — because we know it’s going to be exhausting at times for these guys. Other than that, our guys are really just looking at Florida Gulf Coast on Friday. That’s it. That’s what we need to be concerned with and I know you guys will get to that. They’re a very, very good team.”
Rest and mental toughness is always important when it comes to being successful on the road, but what is also is important is keeping up to your school work.
“School always comes first, so we try to stay on top of that. We’re on top of it because it’s our job, but we make sure we get our work done. Make sure that everything is turned in on time," point guard Chris Chiozza said. “With the rest part and everything, we just listen to everything that Preston and Duke tell us to do. We’ve got the best trainers there are in college. They’re always going to steer us right and make sure that we’re doing good.”
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LOOKING TO IMPROVE SHOOTING
The Achilles heel of last year's team was its shooting at the three-point line and the charity stripe.
Last season Florida shot 64% from the foul line, which ranked 328th among all Division I teams. At the three-point line it wasn’t much better as the Gators shot 31%, which ranked 295th in the nation.
Improving their shooting was a big emphasis for the Gators in the offseason as they brought in graduate transfer Canyon Barry, who averaged almost 20 points a game last season at the College of Charleston. Barry shot 40.2% last season and, to the delight of the Gators staff, shot 84.5% from the free throw line. Coach White has said he has seen an improvement in shooting in the preseason exhibitions and practices but has tempered expectations until the results have shown themselves in the regular season.
“We’ve shot the ball really well. But we haven’t played in the lights, on TV, in front of our fans, against a Division-I team yet when it counted," White said. “So if we shoot the ball well Friday night I’ll take a deep breath and feel good about it. In practice we’ve shot it well, we have. But is that gonna be our strength? I don’t think so. Do I expect to be an improved shooting team from the three and the foul line? Absolutely.”
Chiozza said that even though his teammates have been shooting better, it will be the defense that will be the identity of the team.
“Defense is always going to be our strength but everybody has been shooting a lot better so far through practices and scrimmages," he said. "We are definitely shooting a lot better than last year, we have more shooters this year and there has been a lot of work put in over the summer where everybody increased their shooting ability and I think the confidence is the main thing.”
STRUGGLES IN SUNDAY'S TEAM SCRIMMAGE
Having your worst practice of the fall less than a week before the season-opener may seem like an alarming sign, but White doesn't considered it as that. White said that Sunday’s scrimmage was the first bad day in about three weeks and that the real cause for concern is players having personal agenda’s.
"Sunday scrimmage was probably our worst practice. I think it says a lot. I think we went there about three weeks without having a bad day," said White. “Pleased about those things, but then again with having some of the upperclassmen you have a fear with so much parity on our roster, so much competition, a big fear we’ve all talked about of course is the agendas in basketball. You can start hunting shots and your energy level, defense and rebounding, doing your job, your accountability, your work ethic can all be motivated by your touches and your shots. I think Sunday we weren’t great in that area, but heading into Sunday we were great.”
Chiozza chose to find the silver lining in Sunday’s practice, saying that the offense was looking good but the defense wasn’t at its usual level.
“It was a pretty good offensive scrimmage, our defense was a little off compared to our scrimmage against UAB and our past scrimmages with each other but we’re more of defensive team than an offensive team. I’m sure [Coach White] will do something today in practice to really pick up our defense again so today might not be a fun practice.”
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