GAINESVILLE, Fla.-- The team ranked sixth coming into the season, now out of the top 25 for the eleventh week in a row.

The Florida Gators have been a team that has been impossible to predict this season, but one thing is for sure. The team’s early season defensive strength has almost completely shifted to the offensive side of the court.

“Our defensive numbers have steadily declined over the past month,” said head coach Mike White. “We’ve got to screw ourselves back down defensively and do what we know we’re capable of and play with the amount of edge necessary to win an SEC game.”

At the start of the season, the Gators were performing very well defensively but couldn’t shoot the ball. They were only averaging 64 points in the first five games of the season but putting up impressive numbers on the defensive side of the court. Now, in the past five games they’re averaging over 70 points per game, but their defensive performance has fallen short, resulting in three consecutive losses.

“I've never had a team that defended this poorly. Ever,” said White. “I've got to figure it out. I've done a poor job with this team defensively. I have. What we've done, obviously the last month, is not translating to defending at a high level in games.”

In Florida’s debut game against North Florida, the Gators produced 26 defensive rebounds and seven steals. In their most recent game against Mississippi State on Tuesday, they produced the same number of steals but ten less defensive rebounds.

One thing holding them back defensively is their lack of experience. With the majority of players on this team being freshman, they don’t have the right mindset just yet when it comes to playing games. Once they get a lead, they tend to slow down and let offenses get away with things.

“Good defenses don’t give those things up,” said White. We’ve been more sharp than that. Florida, for a long time has defended at a high level, and this team is not defending at a high level. I’ve got to figure it out."

“We just go to be able to stay aggressive throughout the whole game,” added guard Noah Locke. “Focused and ready to win because anybody can come back from any deficit.”

Freshman guard Scottie Lewis doesn’t blame the decline on anything specific, just says it’s a part of development of the team.

“Preseason we were a top-10 defensive team,” said Lewis. “We tried to focus on offense, because that really was the thing that wasn’t clicking for us early on. But now, we’re growing as an offensive team and kind of figuring it out on that side of the ball. We’re kind of losing our edge on the defensive side, that’s going to happen. It’s just part of the process of trying to find that equilibrium and being able to play both sides of the ball with confidence and with an edge.”

White preaches peer accountability and is counting on the four non-freshman on the team to keep those younger players in check.

“Find more guys calling each other out on mistakes,” said White. “I think we’ve got a group of really, really nice young men that tippy-toe around challenging each other too often.”

That accountability will teach younger players how to live up to the Gator Standard. They have to place an emphasis on playing at their full potential for a full 40 minutes.

“We need to play desperate defensively,” said White.