GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- Florida basketball is looking to bounce back quickly. The Gators are coming off a loss to No. 3 Tennessee only to find themselves facing another ranked opponent on the road, No. 24 Mississippi State.
"Continue to improve, shore up some mistakes down the stretch," Florida head coach Mike White said about what he wants to see. "We’ve got to play much better than we did the other night to have a chance to win on the road against a top-25 team. We have to play much better than we did at Arkansas.”
“Just try to you know, hold our heads up high, just try to learn from the last game and try not to make the same mistakes and just try to execute," said forward Dontay Bassett.
The Gators once again relied on the three in their loss to the Vols. UF went from shooting 9-for-19 from downtown to just 3-for-13 in the second half on Saturday - a recipe that does not bring too much success.
"We’ll continue to try to search to find ways to score it in the paint," said White. "Whether that be from our frontcourt guys or our backcourt guys. I do think we do have some talented young backcourt. Our frontcourt guys, we lost one in semester of course.
"Isaiah Stokes has got to lose weight and get in shape," White added. "Gorjok Gak has got to get healthy, lose weight and get in shape. Dontay Bassett is a fighter, he’s giving us all he can give us, and we signed a kid early, Omar Payne, who’s very, very talented. So we’ll see.”
Stokes has yet to see meaningful playing time after redshirting his first season due to an ACL injury. According to Florida's head coach, Stokes has yet to reach the level necessary to compete for more minutes.
“If you can’t make line drills, I don’t know how you’re going to help us win an SEC game," said White. "I love him. He’s a really nice kid. He’s kind of a microcosm of our team overall, in that it has to be more important to us - it’s got to be more important to him. That goes for most guys on our team.”
One can easily see White's frustration at his team's performances during his post game interviews. However, he wishes his side's manners showed a little more of that frustration.
"I think that’s a big problem of ours’. I’m not sure we have much frustration," White explained. "Trying to muster up the competitiveness. I’d rather our guys get really ticked off; I’d rather them get ticked off at me. Just a really somber group, at timeouts, in film sessions. We’ve got too much apathy - not from everybody, but from too many guys."
“We’re pretty frustrated because we think down the stretch we beat ourselves," said Bassett. "But that comes with just a lot of experience you know, you just gotta learn from it and just move on. Try to not make the same mistakes again.”
Maybe the change is coming.
According to Bassett, a few players have started to become more vocal in the locker room.
"I see Jalen (Hudson) being more vocal these past couple of practices, Spidey (Kavarrius Hayes) and of course I'm trying to do what I can to give us a spark we need," he explained. "Their message is like don't practice when we see our intensity falling off. He's trying to keep us on edge, cause that's what happens in a game. You know, our focus toward the end of a stretch starts to fall off. So, he's trying to keep us competitive and keep us on edge."
"We haven’t found the right button or buttons, not that we’re a top 10 team that’s underperforming - I’m not saying that," White added. "But I do feel like some of these guys.. if I’m pressing the right buttons, we would have gotten and we haven’t. So I’ve got to figure it out.”
”At the end of the day, we're not that old of a team," said Bassett. "So, I mean, a lot of things come with experience and come with just going through things and learning from your game. So, I think the team's handling it well, taking it well."
