Carter's Corner: UF Women's Basketball Had a Comeback Season Despite Deflating End
Sunday, March 20, 2016 | Women's Basketball, Scott Carter
The Gators improved from 13 to 22 wins and made it back to NCAA Tournament
SYRACUSE, N.Y. -- Every season must end somewhere and somehow.
The record will show that for the 2015-16 UF women's basketball team, that place was at the cavernous Carrier Dome on Friday afternoon. As for the how, the Gators won't have much interest in revisiting the chain of events that unfolded in their 61-59 loss to the University of Albany.
In Florida's return to the NCAA Tournament after missing the postseason a season ago, the Gators squandered an 11-point lead with 7:49 remaining as the Great Danes went on a 15-0 run. Florida made just one of its final 12 shots and shot 20 percent (6 of 30) in the second half.
Afterward, the weight of the late-game collapse was evident. Junior forward Ronni Williams walked off the court looking toward the inflated roof of the Carrier Dome. Senior guard Carlie Needles wore a blank stare. Tears bubbled in the eyes of junior guard Simone Westbrook.
After her postgame press conference, Gators head coach Amanda Butler made the long walk through the tunnels of the dome toward the locker room.
Butler trudged along in silence, still tossing around the season's sudden finish in her head.
Moments earlier, Butler tried to contemplate what was a comeback season for the Gators, who finished 22-9 and earned a No. 5 seed in the NCAA Tournament following a 13-17 season.
"There's a lot to celebrate and be happy about, but it's hard to embrace that right now,'' she said.
What ultimately cost the Gators was what plagued the team down the stretch: inconsistency and unpredictability.
Florida climbed as high as 16th in the national rankings in early February, marking the program's highest ranking in seven years. However, the Gators stumbled to a 3-5 record in their final eight games and were booted in the first round of the SEC and NCAA tournaments.
The day before the Gators faced the No. 12-seed UAlbany, which won the first NCAA Tournament game in school history 24 hours later, Butler discussed the need for the team to regain its edge. The team returned to the boxing ring like they did in the preseason to toughen up and sharpen their focus.
Following a slow start against the Great Danes, the Gators appeared to learn from the week of preparation, storming to a 15-point halftime lead with a dominant second quarter in which they were disruptive defensively and opportunistic on the offensive end, with nine different players scoring in the first half.
Butler also spoke about the team's unpredictability and uncertainty about which team would show up. Would Needles hit a barrage of 3-pointers or struggle from long distance? Would Williams dominate on the boards or get in foul trouble? Would freshman Eleanna Christinaki control the pace, or would guard Cassie Peoples get hot and take over?
Those questions were constants for the Gators this season. Unlike UAlbany, which features All-American forward Shereesha Williams at go-to option A, and guard Imani Tate as go-to option B, the Gators lack a true go-to player when the game is on the line.
It was never more obvious than in the final minutes of Friday's loss.
Following a layup by Haley Lorenzen that gave Florida a 57-46 lead, UF missed 11 consecutive shots. Christinaki missed three, Needles missed two, and Peoples, Lorenzen, Williams, Westbrook, January Miller and Dyandria Anderson each misfired once.
"I thought Florida got tired,'' UAlbany coach Katie Abrahamson-Henderson said. "We just kept pressing and we are a team that never gets tired."
The streak finally ended on Miller's layup with 0.4 seconds left, which was too little too late. Meanwhile, with Richards (14 points) on the bench much of the game in foul trouble, Tate poured in 28 points to pick up the slack and guard Erin Coughlin's two steals late impacted the outcome in a huge way.
"When Richards went out, they played harder and I think you have to give a lot of credit to them,'' Lorenzen said. "They saw their best player go out and they played harder."
The Gators' problems aren't rooted in effort. Butler's team is a reflection of the way she played at Florida, feisty and determined. The Gators didn't win 22 games based on talent alone. They often won because they played harder and tougher.
As Butler and her staff start looking toward next season, they do so knowing that five seniors will be gone: Peoples, Needles, Miller, guard Carla Batchelor and reserve center Viktorija Dimaite.
They will build around Williams, the team's best athlete and a player primed for a big season if she can avoid foul trouble and play under control, and Christinaki, a talented freshman from Greece who has a calming influence on the court. Lorenzen is a talented inside-out player in the post, and Westbrook has the ability to fill up the stat line offensively and is a strong defender.
They'll rely on a mix of veterans and newcomers to see if they can earn back-to-back trips to March Madness for the first time since 2001 and '02.
That might help flush the memory of Friday's disappointing finish.
"We just did not play the way Florida play,'' Butler said. "We were a little disjointed at times. Things were just not us."
Finding out exactly what the Gators are is the task ahead.
