Senior guard Myreon Jones was hitting XX percent from the 3-point through the season's first six games, but is just XX over the last three.
UF Search for Shooting Eye Heads to Brooklyn
Saturday, December 11, 2021 | Men's Basketball, Chris Harry
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By: Chris Harry, Senior Writer
NEW YORK — Florida assistant coach Erik Pastrada puts players through shooting sessions nearly every day. On Thursday, Pastrada drilled senior guard Myreon Jones and graduate wing Phlandrous Fleming Jr. during a rigorous 3-point workout, capped by a mini-competition between the two to see who could make the most 3s in a minute.
Both had hot hands, but Jones went nuclear late and beat Fleming with 18 makes in 60 seconds. Eighteen.
Minutes later, when Pastrada returned to his office, he ducked into Mike White's doorway.
"Don't worry, Coach," he said. "They can still shoot."
White wasn't worried. The field-goal percentage numbers of the previous three games have been bad, for sure, and certainly factored into losses at Oklahoma and at home Monday night against previously winless Texas Southern. They were bad against Wednesday against North Florida, but the Gators did a bunch of other things right (namely, with their defense, effort and energy) and won by 30.
Eventually, though, UF will have to make shots at a better clip than the 42.9 percent overall and 29.7 from the 3-point line they show nine games into the season. The coaches and players, to a man, believe it will happen. Preferably starting Sunday when the No. 20 Gators (7-2) face Maryland (5-4) in the third of a four-game hoops extravaganza during the Hall of Fame Invitational at Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
"We have shooters on this team. Good shooters. Forty-percent shooters," graduate guard Brandon McKissic said. "You can't control what happens after the ball is in the air. What you can control is your confidence and shot selection. We're getting 'A' shots. They're either going to go in or they're not. We can't control that. We can control our defense. And as long as we're playing defense like we're capable — and getting 'A' shots — we'll be OK."
UF has struggled to put the ball in the basket the last three games (41.8 percent), and been outright horrendous from the 3-point line, hitting just 17 of 71. That's 19.7 percent.
Grad-transfer Phlandrous Fleming Jr. (24), who is shooting just 25 percent from the 3-point line to date, lets one fly against Oklahoma.
Jones was two of 15 in those games. Fleming made one of five. Fifth-year senior point guard Tyree Appleby, whose buzzer-beating 3-pointer to beat Ohio State last month stands as the signature play of the season, went just 3-for-17 in the three games, including 0-for-6 in the TSU loss.
But toss the topic of of their current cold spell to the players and conversations return to the topic of defense. That's the end of the floor this 2021-22 UF team will have to play its best to be its best. Everyone knows it.
"It's not really a concern for us because we know we're eventually going to make shots because we put the work in," said Appleby, who is at just over 36 percent from the floor overall on the season and just shy of 32 from deep. "What's more important for us is that we got back to our identity that last game [against FAU]. We fell out of out of it for a couple games — we lowered our defensive intensity — and we can't let that happen anymore. If we play defense, the rest will take care of itself."
CHARTING THE GATORS: Big Apple games under Mike WhiteIn his first trip to New York as Florida's coach,Mike White and his troops (Justin Leon and Devin Robinson, above) ran up against No. 1 Duke and a dude named Jayson Tatum.
Date
Opponent
Outcome
Site
Event
What happened
Dec. 6, 2016
No. 1 Duke
L 84-74
Madison Square Garden (NYC)
Jimmy V Classic
Luke Kennard, Amile Jefferson, Jayson Tatum combined for 75 points -- one more than entire UF team. Kasey Hill paces UF with 13 points, 7 rebounds, 6 assists.
March 24, 2017
Wisconsin
W 84-83
Madison Square Garden
NCAA East Region semifinal
Junior guard Chris Chiozza's goes length of floor for miracle 3-point buzzer-beater in 4th-seeded Gators' Sweet 16 victory over 8th-seeded Badgers.
March 26, 2017
South Carolina
L 77-70
Madison Square Garden
NCAA East Region final
SEC PoY Sindarius Thornwell (26 points, 7 rebounds) leads 7th-seeded Gamecocks defense that smothers UF into 33-percent shooting (0-14 from 3) in second half, as Gators fall one win shy of the Final Four.
Dec. 9, 2017
No. 17 Cincinnati
W 66-60
Prudential Center (Newark, NJ)
Never Forget Tribute Classic
Chiozza breaks a tie by scoring the game's final six points, as fifth-ranked Gators snap a three-game losing streak.
Dec. 4, 2018
West Virginia
W 69-59
Madison Square Garden
Jimmy V Classic
Senior guard KeVaughn Allen leads way with 19 points, while UF defense stifles high-scoring WVU (86 ppg), holding Mountaineers to 29.7 percent and forcing 21 turnovers.
Dec. 17, 2019
Providence
W 83-51
Barclays Center (Brooklyn,NY)
Hall of Fame Invitational
Sophomore forward Keyontae Johnson leads way with 19 points, 10 boards, as Gators hold Friars to 26-percent shooting and just 1-for-18 from distance.
The numbers suggest as much. Appleby came into the season as a career 36-percent shooter from distance. Jones, currently at 33.3 percent, shot 37.6 during his three seasons at Penn State. McKissic hit at a 38.5-percent clip during his four years at Missouri-Kansas City and sits at a flat 30.0 to date. Fleming wasn't known as a great long-ball shooter during his 1,500-point career at Charleston Southern, when he only hit better than 32 percent in two of his four seasons. But even he's below his career number (.304) with just six makes in 24 tries (.250).
Pastrada said the nine-game digits not only go against each players' career numbers, but also against what the staff has tracked during practices and scrimmages the last five months.
"I'm always one of those guys who's going to look at the larger sample size," he said.
To that point, Maryland will come into Sunday's game with worse shooting numbers than Florida: 41.0 percent overall and 28.9 from the arc. In his scouting presentation to the players, Pastrana reminded them the Terrapins are dealing with similar shooting issues, while pointing to the career numbers of guards Eric Ayala (33.3 percent vs. 29.0 this season) and Donta Scott (37.0 vs. 27.2).
They're looking to get hot, too.
As far as the Gators, they also could be dealing with a transitional phase of sorts. They're playing faster and playing fewer guys, while also demanding harder plays (and to that aforementioned identity) on the defensive end. That means they'll need to learn to play through — and shoot through — elements of fatigue.
"Our guys play with tremendous effort. We're playing full-court with our defensive pressure," Pastrada said. "As the season goes on, we'll get more comfortable with shooting shots at a frenetic pace. There's a comfort level to that."
UF hopes to marry the two — shooting and defense — under the bright city lights of this NBA arena Sunday. If it doesn't happen against the Terps, though, the Gators will have to lean on the blue-collar, defensive ways they vowed to be their blueprint this season.
Their identity.
There's that word again. Get used to it.
"We're not worried about shots. We're getting good looks and eventually they're going fall," Jones said. "We can't let that dictate our defense. Defense has to be our identity."