GAINESVILLE, Fla. -- Three follow-up observations from Florida's win Wednesday against Arkansas that moved the Gators to 15-7 on the season and 6-3 in Southeastern Conference play.
1) The Florida coaches have been encouraging sophomore point guard
Chris Chiozza to be more aggressive. Well, he took 12 shots (tied his season high) against the Razorbacks and six 3-point attempts. He didn't hit a high percentage (4-for-12, 1-for-6), but most of them were good, clean looks and he drove the ball enough to get to the free-throw line 10 times. Now, roll in eight assists (one off his career best) -- versus just one turnover -- and Chiozza accounted for more than a third of his team's 87 points and did it against a second straight opponent that bases its defense on full-court pressure. He now has 59 assists and 17 turnovers in nine SEC games. As far as running the team, he's playing very, very well and that goes for when he's alongside
Kasey Hill in the backcourt. If West Virginia and Arkansas can't expose those two in the press, what team can?
2) Speaking of Chiozza and Hill, the three-guard rotation that also includes
KeVaughn Allen really gives Coach
Mike White an extra option. Those are three very fast players with good handles. Throw in Allen's ability to score in a spaced floor, too. Allen was not particularly aggressive against his home state Hogs (just six field-goal attempts), but he didn't appear to be tentative, either. It seemed more like he was just blending in with the flow of the game (though his teammates may have missed some opportunities to get him the ball when he was open). Allen had been on an offensive tear of late, with eight of his last 10 games in double-figures, including five straight. He didn't score his ninth and 10th points until those clinching free throws with 5.6 seconds left, but it speaks to the rest of the Florida offense that the Gators could hang 87 on Arkansas without their most explosive scorer finding his groove.
3) Defensively, it was not a stellar night for the Gators. UF put a really good 10 minutes on tape to start the second half, but over the course of the game there were too many straight-line drives, poor block-outs, lack of communication and poor block-outs. The Hogs shot 45.3 from the floor and 47.6 from the 3-point line, plus pounded a bigger UF team on the boards 37-31, including a 15-8 edge on the offensive glass. Yes, Arkansas was the No. 1 scoring team and 3-point shooting team in the SEC, and showed its explosiveness late by scoring 16 points in the final 1:49 minutes to whack a 10-point lead to two with 6.5 seconds left. Sort of like what Florida did last week when the Gators scored 13 points in the final 55 seconds at Vanderbilt to turn an eight-point deficit into a 60-59 loss, thanks to a meaningless 3-pointer at the buzzer. The difference? Arkansas was within two with just over six seconds left -- under its own basket -- and put fierce pressure on UF just to get the ball in bounds. After having to call a timeout the first crack, Chiozza got a pass into Allen, the team's best free-throw shooter, and he put the game away.
