Florida’s four-game winning streak came to an embarrassing end on Wednesday night, with a 72-66 loss in Quadrant 3 at home to South Carolina. Coming from a courageous victory over then … No. 11 West Virginia in Morgantown on Saturday, the number 22 Gators found themselves back in the top 25
But from the start, it was clear that whatever triggered UF’s recent game was absent against the Gamecocks. USC (5-6, 3-4 SEC) started offensively hot, and the Gators (10-5, 6-4 SEC) had no response. He opened a 24-14 lead in the first half.
Florida struggled, however, and with a pitch percentage of almost 50%, closed the gap and took a five-point lead to the locker room. But that leadership evaporated in a fateful second half. The UF shootout plummeted and its defensive allegiance followed.
The Gators have a series of tough games ahead of them, starting with a road fight against LSU, a team that Florida defeated in Gainesville last month. If you want to avoid a February spiral, you cannot repeat performance in your next presentation.
Here are three lessons from setback loss.
1 Another talented guard, another irregular defensive performance
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
If Florida has an Achilles’ heel, they are talented guards. Whether it’s Scottie Pippen Jr. of Vanderbilt or Cameron Thomas of LSU, the league’s best defensive players have given the Gators a headache.
Facing another of the SEC’s top guards in AJ Lawson of South Carolina, the UF’s defense fell apart. He capitalized on the size advantage his 1.80m board gives him, and none of the UF’s defenders of the court managed to slow him down.
Lawson finished with 22 points out of 9 out of 16 shots, and he also made his presence known around the edge, bringing a team record of eight rebounds. He and guard Seventh Woods led a tremendous offensive performance in the second half of the Gamecocks, in which the team hit 51.4 percent. Woods had 12 points in the game, all in the finals.
Lawson was always difficult for the Gators to face, but they fought even more than expected. With the rematch against Thomas (who scored 28 in his first game against Florida) on Saturday, the UF needs to find out what went wrong quickly.
2 Florida lost inside. Should not.
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Even during the winning streak, Florida’s game has been rather inconsistent this season. But one area that seemed to have been blocked was his game in the countryside, thanks in large part to the addition of Colin Castleton, transferred from Michigan (who is having one of the longest escape seasons in the SEC). Against South Carolina, however, that physical game at home was missing.
Castleton scored 11 points, but hit just a third of his shots. He had seven rebounds and seven blocks, which led the team to a 12-block performance, the best of the season. His painting counterpart, Omar Payne, was efficient offensively, scoring 10 points out of 5 out of 5 shots to go with his four rebounds. But with two players in the starting lineup over six feet, Florida shouldn’t have had a problem with an undersized USC team.
But that was not the case. Gamecocks passed UF 43-35, including a 13-8 margin on offensive cards. South Carolina was much better at converting second chance points, scoring 20 against Florida’s eight. USC scored 50 points in the painting, while the Gators made only 30.
This performance was inexplicable and inexcusable, and the UF has its first defeat in more than two weeks to show this.
3 The bad shot from the second half gave up the game
Kim Klement-USA TODAY Sports
Despite all the problems mentioned above, the Gators had a very real chance of winning this game. In fact, it looked like they had it for most of the second half. Florida led by eight with more than 13 minutes to play and still maintained a six-point lead in seven minutes.
But Florida ended the game with a disastrous 2:05 drought. The UF lost its last eight attempts at goal and made only one of the last 10. And this time, the Gators have no problem to blame for that.
Sure, Tre Mann committed four fouls in this game, but they didn’t make him lose a significant amount of time (he stayed on the court for almost three minutes). He led the team with 17 points in addition to his eight assists, but hit just 6 out of 16. Noah Locke, who was Florida’s second highest scorer with 15 points, was more accurate, hitting five of his nine shots.
But Locke was left with just two points in the second half, and although Tyree Appelby followed a first goalless period with six points in the second, that was not enough. Florida could not count on their bank, as it was considered goalless in the second half. Even Scottie Lewis, who continues to leave the bench, had a 0 to 4 shot in the last frame.
UF’s pitch has been one of his strengths in recent games, and the team came to join this game leading the SEC in the percentage of three-point pitches. But that production was AWOL against the Gamecocks, and the Florida NCAA tournament curriculum suffered a major blow because of that.