Defensive Lapses in Loss Leaves Gators at 'Fork' in Road

Saturday, January 21

Gainesville, FL

12 PM

Florida Gators

Vanderbilt

There was a lot for the Gators to be frustrated in Saturday's home loss to Vanderbilt, including their defense.

Defensive Lapses in Loss Leaves Gators at 'Fork' in Road

Saturday, January 21, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

Box Score Photo Gallery by Tim Casey, Tamara Dobry, Kelly Streeter, and Alexis Clarke

Vanderbilt bombed in 10 3-pointers and made plays down the stretch to upset the 19th-ranked Gators at home.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A few times this season, Florida coach Mike White has praised his team for toughening up and pushing through for the kind of victory the likes of which, in his words, the Gators would not have been able to produce last season.

Well, last season made a comeback Saturday at Exactech Arena.

Vanderbilt guard Matthew Fisher-Davis led a quartet of teammates into double-figures against a seemingly stupefied UF defense as the Commodores, behind nearly 57 percent shooting in the second half, shocked 19th-ranked UF and its sold-out O'Dome crowd by handing them a 68-66 defeat that marked a second straight loss and had some Gators talking to and at each other.

It's possible not a lot of people witnessed thel atter, but White was all too willing to toss it out in as honest (and dejected) a post-game post-mortem as he's had in two seasons on the Florida sideline.

"I don't know if you guys noticed, but in our timeouts we had some finger-pointing going on. A lot of immaturity," White said. "Our culture has really improved, but today we had a lot of ugliness that showed back up."

On defense, especially.

The Gators (14-5, 5-2) were playing with fire during a seven-game winning streak when during the during the last four they allowed opponents to shoot a combined 49 percent from the floor. UF took a challenge from White and recommitment to guarding at a much higher level to South Carolina earlier in the week and left Columbia with a 57-53 loss, but also after holding the Gamecocks to just 29 percent from the floor. That was a good sign.

Defensively, the plan against Vandy (9-10, 3-4), the best 3-point shooting team in the Southeastern Conference, was to switch all five spots in the half court and prevent the Commodores — any of them — from staring down wide-open shots from beyond the arc. That would require lots of talking among each defender.

Instead, Vandy went 10-for-25 from distance, including 5-for-11 in the second half. Seven-foot-one center Luke Kornet (11 points, 4 rebounds, 3-for-5 from deep) swished one from the wing with 3:10 to play, just 15 seconds after UF guard KeVaughn Allen, who broke out of his three-game funk with a season-best 29 points, had given the Gators the lead on a 3 of his own. Kornet's shot put the Commodores up 62-61.

"It's communicating," junior forward Devin Robinson said after finishing with12 points and six rebounds. "We just weren't talking to each other on the switches. They got a lot of open looks and knocked them down from 3."

Added White: "The entire focus of this game and the scouting report — hours and hours went into it; hours went into drilling; an hour or two showing the guys on film — was we're switching 'one' through 'five.' [Vandy] knew that. Everyone in the arena knew that. You're switching 'one' through 'five' to negate Luke Kornet's ability as a 5-man to stretch the defense and, with their five guys behind the arc, to negate their ability to to get a bunch of 3s off … and they still got 25 off. It's beyond me. It's absolutely incredible."

And the breakdowns bled to the rest of the defense, as well.

Sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen drives through the Vandy defense for two of his season-best 29 points in Saturday's 68-66 loss at Exactech Arena.

When backup forward Canyon Barry drove into the teeth of the Vandy defense and squeezed through a contested layup to push the Gators back up 63-62, the crowd came alive, but only long enough to see Fisher-Davis answer on the next possession by getting into the paint and banking in a runner.

UF center John Egbunu followed with a missed front end one-and-one opportunity, which guard Nolan Cressler (10 points, 4 rebounds) countered with two free throws for Vandy to make it a three-point lead with 1:34 to go. When Gators senior point guard Kasey Hill (5 points, 7 assists, 4 turnovers) was fouled with just over a minute left, he managed just one of two free throws. The margin was two.

Then Cressler went baseline for a layup and four-point lead with 38 seconds left.

Hill came back with a layup of his own with 32.2 to go, with the Gators calling a timeout. At Vandy's end, UF came up with a steal, but Allen's closely guarded 3-point try from the corner in the final seconds caromed off the rim. His 29 points were a season-high, but that meant little.

"It's not about me, it's about the team," Allen said.

As for his team, the loss marked the first time the Commodores won back-to-back games in Gainesville since the 1990 and '91 seasons.

Florida shot 45.6 percent from the floor, but nine first-half turnovers — against a foe ranked at the bottom of the league stats in forcing turnovers — set an early tone. In fact, Vandy took an 8-0 lead from the opening tip and had UF playing uphill the rest of the game.

"We can't be checked out at the start of the game or the start of the second half," Robinson said. "We have to be focused at the jump."

Why that wasn't the case with a chance to bounce back from a midweek road loss with a big, soldout home game had to be puzzling for White and his staff, but not as puzzling as the lack of defense. White bemoaned one possession in the first half when Commodores point guard Riley LaChance (11 points, 5 assists), who leads the SEC in 3-point shooting at 56 percent, had no defender around him when he caught the ball on the perimeter and set his feet.

"It was a 'HORSE' shot," White said.

On a day of, pardon the pun, "HORSE-shot" defense.

For UF's players, it's time to step in front of the mirrors. To reflect, not preen. The Gators are at a crossroads.

Where are they headed?

"Before the game we talked about how certain teams in our league and throughout college basketball, right about now, head upward, some head downward," White said. "Maybe I shouldn't have brought that up, but now there's a fork in the road here. Do we panic? Do we point fingers? Do we blame each other? Or do we simply man up and put some of our deficiencies on ourselves and find a way to get better?"

The answers start coming this week.