GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida basketball went from Final Four hopefuls, ranked No. 6 in the country to an unranked mystery in just four games.
Gators head coach Mike White and his side is having to answer tough questions after dropping to 2-2 after losses to unranked Florida State and Connecticut.
Up until Tuesday night, White never addressed the preseason hype with his side - it has never been his way. That changed.
"Maybe it was my mistake by trying to downplay it," White said. "I think the biggest thing I've learned lately is that if they're not getting messages from me, they're getting them from someone else, somebody else, some device, what have you."
White started to notice there was a problem after the Florida State game when Keyontae Johnson said the team may have believed the hype.
"Oh my goodness. I don't even like the fact that they're talking about it, honestly, because that shows you the buy-in of not believing the hype," White said after that FSU game. "I guess there was hype. Crazy. ... I can't imagine our guys were overconfident. I can believe they said that, but if they are then I've really got my hands full."
But the Gators have been locked in at practice. There has been no attitude issues but yet the team is not where it should be.
"The body language, the lack of confidence, the 'Oh no, the sky is falling look' on some of these guys' faces lets me know that it definitely has affected us," White said. "It definitely has, so where do we go from here? Let's talk about. I'm changing philosophies on that today, since you asked. We'll see how it works.
"We're just going to have an open conversation. When we've done that in the past with these guys about other topics, it's been great. It's been really healthy conversation. It's a great group. We'll figure it out."
The Gators hope they can figure out a better offensive strategy moving forward. Anyone watching a Florida basketball game can see players are hesitating to take their shot.
"We are just very dysfunctional offensively right now. Obviously, we all know that," White said. "We push when we probably should walk. We walk it when we got guys open ahead of us. Especially at UConn, we passed up shots we should’ve shot and took shots maybe we shouldn’t have shot."
So whats the issue?
"I think it's a little bit overthinking a little bit of just worrying about other things instead of just kind of being confident, knocking down shots," said guard Andrew Nembhard.
On Monday, instead of practicing, White and his side gathered together to watch film of their loss to UConn - the entire game film. The team was able to break down every pass, shot and decision.
"Took more into account the actual flow of the game, for the first time with this team," White said. "‘This is why this one wasn’t a good one. This is why this one was an open shot. If we had actually sprinted to the screen and used the screen, spaced to the corner...’ All kinds of little details we have to get better at."
But is the focus on the details a deterrent in basketball? Of course you want to be technically sound but when does interfere with a player's decision making.
"That’s a tough, tough balance," said White. "We look, our body language, the whole aura about us offensively, especially with our shot-takers, especially from the perimeter, we don’t look nearly as sure of ourselves as we do in practice. And as I’ve seen these guys in the past, whether it be their senior high school season, AAU, what have you, or a couple of these freshmen playing with the confidence that they played with late last winter.
"Confidence in basketball is an enormous factor, and we’re not playing with a lot of it right now -- in games, at least."
The Gators will hope to find some confidence on Thursday when they tip off the Charleston Classic against St. Josephs at 2.p.m.
"I think it will give us some quick experience with three quick games," Nembhard said. "Give us a new look, a new kind of chance for guys to kind of play a lot of games quickly, so I think it'll be good for us."
Nembhard and his teammates have heard it all on social media, however, they are trying not to let a slow start derail a whole season.
"A little bit of frustration, but we're just trying to kind of work through it as a team," Nembhard said. "I don't think it's too much frustration because it's very early. And I think we got a lot of work to do well. I think we're all confident we can do it."
"I think we have a good opportunity to come back together and try to make some wins happen for us," said Ques Glover.
