Gators Leaving Comforts of Home ... Thankfully

Wednesday, January 25

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The word senior point guard Kasey Hill used to describe UF's recent defense was "horrible."

Gators Leaving Comforts of Home ... Thankfully

Wednesday, January 25, 2017 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry

UF's defensive struggles last game have been around for a few games.

By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer

BATON ROUGE, La. — Because Saturday's game started at noon, the Florida basketball team had most of the afternoon, all of that night, plus all of its "off" Sunday to stew over what happened in a stinging 68-66 home loss to Vanderbilt. On Monday, players stopped by the basketball offices for their individual meetings with coaches. The pre-practice film session later that afternoon morphed into an open and honest internal examination that lasted more than two hours and yielded a consensus.

"We've to to get back to playing defense," said senior point guard Kasey Hill, the most vocal leader inside the UF locker room. "It's that simple."

Without question, the defense has been bad of late.

"No," Hill quickly corrected. "It's been horrible."

Remember those first 11 games when the Gators bounced around like nomads — with stops in seven Florida cities, plus a trip to New York — while renovation work on the $64.5 million Exactech Arena was being finished? Those were five weeks of bonding amid a unique kind of adversity and brought something good out of this team: a willingness to guard. Seven of UF's opponents failed to shoot 40 percent from the floor, with an eighth hitting just 42.3. In UF's three defeats it gave up 45.8 percent in a five-point loss at Florida State, 51.7 in falling by 10 against Duke at Madison Square Garden, and 52.5 in a four-point defeat to Gonzaga, still unbeaten and ranked third in the country, in Orlando.

When Exactech was unveiled for the Dec. 21 against Arkansas-Little Rock, the Gators hovered in or around the top 10 in virtually every defensive metric, with the exception of rebounding.

Then this happened.

* Little Rock: 50 percent from the floor.
* at Arkansas: 41.0.
* Ole Miss: 51.1.
* Tennessee: 50.0
* at Alabama: 46.0
* Georgia: 48.3.
* at South Carolina: 29.4.
* Vanderbilt: 46.0.

Hard to believe, but the Gators won the first six of those games. Just as hard to believe, they lost the 29.4-percent one. Then came the Commodores, who bombed in 10 3-pointers Saturday to put a pit in the home team's stomach. Is there a trend? A common denominator?

Hill thinks so.

"Once we got to playing our home games, things changed," Hill said. "Everybody wants to score at home. That isn't basketball. You can't play basketball without getting stops. It's like it all started with Arkansas-Little Rock."

It's not as if they weren't warned.

[Read senior writer Chris Harry's UF-LSU 'Pregame Stuff' preview here]

When the Gators were set to move into their palatial new Exactech digs, Coach Mike White cautioned them about the lure of playing to the crowd; to parents, to coaches, to friends, to girlfriends, to fans. It was as though UF's identity changed overnight. How else do you explain allowing Arkansas-Little Rock to shoot 50 percent on your home court and holding just plain Arkansas, your Southeastern Conference rival, to 41 percent on its?

How do you explain playing defense at 40.7-percent away from home, but 49.0 in your beautiful new arena?

"Our attention to detail on that end hasn't been the same, even through wins," White said. "It's not something you [mess] with. I'm hopeful we get back to that level of defending."

Maybe the first — and best — step toward doing that is a game away from home. Or two. Maybe an SEC date Wednesday night for the No. 25 Gators (14-5) against LSU (9-9, 1-6) at the Maravich Assembly Center, followed by a weekend road swing through Oklahoma for the SEC/Big 12 Challenge will remind the UF players about that jaw-set, defense-first mentality that has served them so well earlier in the season.

Maybe.

Florida could be without some of its best offensive punch, with backup forward Canyon Barry questionable due to an ankle sprain suffered at practice Monday. Barry is the team's second-leading scorer at 12.4 points per game. Without his production, UF better guard better.

"We've been fortunate in a couple games where we beat a good opponent and didn't play up to our capability defensively," White said. "I'm hopeful we get back to that [elite] level of defending, when our focus is right and we sell out on it, as opposed to coming in the games with our focus on different things."

After the Vandy game, White talked about the multitude of times he'd told the Gators how they couldn't lean on the home floor to push them through. The Rowdy Reptiles, he said, can't call out screens on the defensive end.

The LSU game presents different circumstances, but the basic tasks don't change.

"We have to communicate better with each other," sophomore guard KeVaughn Allen said. "We just got to talk to one another, and let each other hear one another while we're on the floor."

The unwillingness to call out screens and switches led to a barrage of 3-pointers in the Vandy loss. And while LSU is on a five-game losing streak, the Tigers are quite capable of getting their offense going on the home floor, starting with shooting guard Antonio Blakeney, who dropped a career-high 32 on the Gators here last season. In that one, LSU raced through the Florida defense on the way to a 96-91 win. The Tigers shot 56 percent for the game. The Gators shot 66 percent in the second half. It marked one of the highest-scoring UF games in years.

Exactly the kind the Gators are looking to eliminate.

"We need to recommit and refocus to defending at the level we're capable," White said. "[Do that], everything we will take care of itself."

It's up to the guys between the lines to understand. After a lot of film review and some unfiltered conversation, they say they do.

"It definitely has to change," Hill said. "It will change."