Kerry Blackshear Jr. and the Gators hope they have more to smile about against Towson Thursday than during Sunday's debacle against Florida State.
Post-FSU Gators Need More KJ Post Touches
Thursday, November 14, 2019 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
GAINESVILLE, Fla. — Two words, more than any others, have been thrown out (and yelled a bunch of times, actually) during Florida basketball film sessions and practices the last couple days.
On Sunday, the Gators, ranked sixth in the nation at the time, were punched in the mouth by Florida State in a 63-51 home humbling during which they looked disjointed, stagnant and hesitant on the offensive end. Just why it happened in such a big game — with a sold-out Exactech Arena crowd in the house, and with a chance to snap a five-game losing streak against a cross-state rival — doesn't matter now as much as the sense of urgency to fix the problem. UF didn't bring the 6-foot-10 Blackshear, the nation's No. 1 graduate-transfer and the program's best "big" since Al Horford, into the fold to use as a decoy while his teammates dribbled aimlessly around the perimeter and settled for bad late-clock shots.
Though that's what it looked like against the Seminoles.
"He was open the whole game — the whole game," UF coach Mike White said of Blackshear.
The orange-and-blue lining to all this is that Florida (1-1), after tumbling amid the weight of expectations from No. 6 to No. 15, is just two games into a season and has a bunch of chances to get this right, starting with Thursday night's date against Towson (2-1) at the O'Dome.
Keep your eyes on No. 24 in white, 'cause you better believe his teammates on the floor will be so. If not, they won't be out there very long.
"First dude who looks him off is going to be sitting next to me," UF assistant Jordan Mincy said.
[Read senior writer Chris Harry's "Pregame Stuff" setup here]
Against the Seminoles, post-ups, slip screens and duck-ins were available for the Gators, and not exclusive to Blackshear, either. Yes, on numerous occasions, Blackshear had a seal on his defender in the post, hand in the air and calling for the ball that never came — or came too late. There were also sequences where freshmen Omar Payne and Jason Jitobah put themselves in advantageous situations through slips and duck-ins on the block, but never got the ball.
"The best players in our game get the ball to the guys who are open," associate head coach Al Pinkins said.
Especially, when those open players can do the most damage.
"We have to get the ball to KJ," freshman guard Scottie Lewis said. "He's our best player."
UF coach Mike White was frustrated Sunday as Florida State's defense completely rattled and disrupted what the Gators were trying to do in the halfcourt.
Blackshear averaged nearly 15 points a game and shot over 50 percent from the floor as a second-team All-Atlantic Coast Conference player at Virginia Tech last season. He could have gone to any program in the country and played right away, but the Orlando native picked UF in great part because the coaching staff put together a detailed plan that showed Blackshear, a big who can play at all three levels, how he'd be the focal point of the offense. From the time he arrived on campus in July, through summer and preseason practices, the UF offense ran through him.
Then Sunday, it didn't.
Part of that was Florida State. The Seminoles under Coach Leonard Hamilton have carved a notorious reputation with regard to defending on the perimeter and with an ability to switch "1" through "5." Their athleticism and length surely was a problem, but the Gators — upon further review, both coaches and players — believe they should have handled the Seminoles' pressure.
"They were able to mix it up and made it tough," sophomore point guard Andrew Nembhard said. "We just have to get better."
The first opportunity is a date against the Tigers, out of the Colonial Athletic Association, who probably will follow the FSU defensive blueprint and see where that gets them. Ditto Connecticut on the road this weekend, as well as UF's three opponents in next week's Charleston Classic, and so on, and so on, until the Gators demonstrate they're not a one-dimensional bunch.
Explained White: "So much of this is trial and error. If I could have it back, we would probably put a little more structure to, 'We are going to dribble the ball to here,' or, 'We are going to pass the ball here,' and then, 'It is going there and we're going to play off that guy,' at least a few times a half, as opposed to, 'Hey, we've got to get him the ball in our continuity stuff and our freedom stuff.' We didn't get [KJ] the ball. You're just evaluating that at all times. Moving forward offensively, we are definitely a work in progress, of course. We can all see that. I do like where we are, defensively, especially with our vets, and competing, and matching [FSU] on the glass. We did some good things. We have to settle in offensively, find some identity offensively, find out who we are and play to our strengths."
The Gators know what those strengths are, but now it's about learning to best implement them against the opposition. It won't all be as difficult most nights as it was against Florida State, but UF needs to be ready (and a lot better) when those situations arise. Blackshear is just too good a resource to under-utilize, especially on a team with weapons around him that should make him all the more dangerous.
Credit Blackshear, a savvy 23-year-old and the lone so-called "senior" on the team, for humbly deflecting blame away from his teammates.
"There's a lot I can do better to give those guys confidence to throw it inside in some of those situations," he said. "I can do better sealing earlier, holding my post a little bit better to give those guys an easier outlet and then also just a balance of always making the right reads and looking for a teammate, but also being basketball players, if they got a shot. I'm definitely looking for them to shoot it because we have some high-level guys who can score the ball. We haven't shot the ball really well yet, but those shots are going to fall for us."
Everyone is in agreement, though, that the best starting point is my making sure the man in the middle, the guy with the preseason All-America and Southeastern Conference Player of the Year accolades, gets his touches.
"There are certain plays we're going to run designed to get KJ the ball, but with a lot of stuff we run there will be a couple different options, and even though the play may not necessarily be for him, he'll be open," Pinkins said. "It's about recognition. We call that 'playing basketball' and 'making basketball plays.' These guys know that. Now, just go do it. Go out there and make the right basketball play."
