GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida basketball (8-4) is set to start SEC play on Saturday.
"I've been waiting for it," said Keyontae Johnson. "I feel like it's more competitive. Everybody want to win in conference play. Every game's going to be hard and just shows like who's the tougher team."
The Gators had one of the toughest non-conference schedules in the country - playing the second-toughest slate in the SEC, according to KenPom. UF did not come out of it unscathed - losing four of its 12 first games.
“We’re probably a little hopeful that we would have had one or two more wins at this point. That said, there is plenty of basketball ahead of us,"said Mike White.
The Gators head coach is hoping conference play will provide a fresh start to a Gators team that, one can argue, has underperformed this season.
"Fresh start. For all of us, really," said White on Friday morning. "Our schedule to this point has been very difficult, of course, and continues to get more difficult. I don’t know who you play in this league and say, ‘We’re gonna get healthy tonight against these guys.’ Night in, night out, some of the best teams in the country. Great coaches, great players, great preparation. Great crowds and arenas. It’s exciting.”
"Just a chance to keep improving, keep getting better," said guard Andrew Nembhard. "I think we’ve got a clean slate right now going into SEC play, so kind of excited for that.”
Florida is coming off a good, dominating 102-63 win over Long Beach State last Saturday. The Gators shot a season best 54% from the floor and netted a season-high of 12 triples.
A lot better than their 33% shooting against Utah State a few weeks back.
It's no secret that Florida's offense has sometimes been uninspired in the opening 12 games. Florida currently averages 70.8 points per game, 44.1% shooting and 21.2% shooting from the outside.
"We’ve got to pass the ball better, we’ve got to shoot the ball better. Period. We’ve got one guy with a positive assist-to-turnover ratio," said White. "We might be one of the only teams in the country with that. We’ve got two guys who are even, Noah and KJ. We’ve got, overall, pass the ball better, make better decisions. "
“Just making sure we get the right shots offensively, and just lock in and be more accountable defensively as a team," said Nembhard.
"When guys are open in the post we’ve got to throw it to ‘em. When we’ve got an extra open that takes a decent and leads to a betters shot, we have to make that extra," added White. "We’ve got to eat it at times, instead of making hope passes, where, ‘I hope this thing gets through that tight little tunnel.’ Or I shouldn’t throw that one. Assist-to-turnover ratio. Making 3’s, we’ve got to make jump shots. We’ve been as efficient at the rim and at the foul line and getting to the foul line than we’ve been in years. We’ve got to make some jump shots.”
While the Gators played the second hardest slate in the SEC, Alabama played the toughest.
The Crimson Tide (7-5) is set to come to the O'Dome for the SEC opener after winning five of their six games.
Alabama head coach Nate Oats hails from Buffalo, where he took the Bulls to the NCAA tournament three times during his tenure. He brought with him an offense that ranks fourth in the nation in tempo.
"I’ve watched his teams over the years. They’re playing really hard. He’s imposed his will on their tempo, a very unique tempo and style offensively, in attempting tons of 3s, of course.They’ve adopted well," said White. "They’re making shots at a high level. They can really shoot the ball. Kira Lewis is one of the best point guards in the country. John Petty is one of the most improved players in our league. He’s expanded his game a little bit. They’re playing downhill with a lot of confidence, and they’ve been disruptive defensively."
Alabama averages 82.8 points per game, shooting at 44.5% clip from the floor and 36.8% from three-point range.
"I mean they have a really fast tempo, they score a lot of points," said Nembhard. "Definitely will be a good test for us to see if we can kind of run with them.”
Transition defense will be very important on Saturday.
“As important as any game we’ll play this year," said White. "Floor balance. Picking your spots on the offensive glass against these guys to give you just a chance to defend the 3 at even a decent level. It really has to be at high level to even give you a chance against these guys.”
White is anxious to see how his players respond this weekend.
”I’m anxious to see, to evaluate it," said White. "You know, our sophomores have been through it... Feel like we have a pretty good feel for what we're going to get from those four vets. Anxious to see how our freshmen handle it, handle the difference of intensity level, the fresh start. Dontay's [Bassett] a good, too. I shouldn't leave him out of the vets because he's bringing it every day. He's bringing a energy and work ethic in practice."
The first 12 games may not have gone how Florida hoped, however, it allowed the team to learn.
“Biggest lesson is to not worry about the hype," said Nembhard. "Just worry about getting better, really."
"Coach White, he's been preaching not to listen to the hype and I guess, I mean, some players might have listened to it and all that," said Johnson. "So now that we notice how much stuff needs to be done, we just need to keep working as a team and just get better each game."
The game against Alabama is an opportunity for Florida to pad its NCAA resume.
"I feel like, again I try not to look into it, but I feel like if we just keep doing everything we have to do we'll be fine," said Johnson.
Tip off for Saturday's matchup is set at 6 p.m. It will be broadcasted on ESPN2.
MEDICAL REPORT
The good news for Florida is that Scottie Lewis may be available on Saturday.
“Was cleared yesterday evening. So he’ll go today for the first time," said White. "Who knows, who knows for tomorrow, but he’ll practice today.”
GATOR CHOMPS
Losing Gak hurt in practice?
“Two or three days ago I guess we without Gak and two or three other guys and we played four-on-four for an hour and a half. We’re back to that, which we’ve done these past couple of years. Just when you think you’ve got great depth. Also, it’s one less guys, one less 6-11 long, athletic, experienced guy who really understood what we were doing, of course. He had done some help in terms of the development of young bigs, and now it’s on Omar and Jason to do it with one less older guy out there to compete with, but also, conversely, Jason Jitoboh’s tongue has been falling out the past couple of days in practice because he’s more reps in practice. The positive side is these guys are getting more reps. Omar Payne’s continue to gain more confidence with more reps in practice, as well.”
Practice in O’Dome to acclimate?
“Yeah, a little bit. It’s a different court, a different environment, of course. It’s easier to do when school’s out, cause you’re moving the whole operation over here. We try to do this a couple of times a year. With the way that we’ve shot the ball at this point probably a little bit more so this year than in any year that we’ve been here. We’re also just trying to do some individual workouts over to complement when we do practice over there. But we’re going here today, of course.
How’s the chemistry been?
”How’s it been? I would say average. Good at times, not very good at times. Sometimes really good defensively, sometimes not overly connected defensively. And then offensively probably less connected for the most part. But we've shown some bright spots, too. But overall gradually improving and I think these guys ... the best thing about this team, win, lose, good practice, bad practice, make shots, don't make shots, the next day in practice these guys really have responded well. If that continues, it gives us a chance to improve throughput the season. I think we're probably a little bit more limited offensively in certain areas, passing and shooting. We work daily on overall passing and the ball movement and the tempo and picking our spots and making extras and reading defenses and all that type stuff. And we're not a great passing team, but we can continue to get better. I do have confidence, though, that we'll shoot it better moving forward. I just think we'll shoot it better. I don't think we're a great shooting team, but I think we got a couple guys whose percentages will go up."
Guys who need to take a jump in SEC play?
”Yeah, I think it's a fair question. I would say our freshmen guards, our three freshmen guards. Unfortunately they come in with a bunch of expectations, some unfair, some maybe fair, who knows? How ever you want to evaluate it. But our three freshmen guards are talented and not that you have to have all three play great night in and night out. I think that's probably expecting too much with these true freshmen, of course. They're trying to figure some things out, but if we can have one of two of them step up, one and a half of them, you get solid play from one and really good play from another each night, it will just really help up. That's the hope.”
