Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — The number was shown to Kowacie Reeves. 

"For real?" he asked. 

Then to Niels Lane. 

"That's really surprising,"  Lane said. 

And Myreon Jones, too. 

"Seriously?" he shot back. "I didn't know it was that bad." 

If the eight returning Florida Gators went back and reviewed the tape from the gang-that-couldn't-shoot-straight 2021-22 season, they would soon be reminded of just how bad it was. 

30.3 percent

That's what the Gators shot last season from the 3-point line in their first year out of the NCAA Tournament since 2016. That the percentage was among not only the worst in the Southeastern Conference (12th in the 14-team league) but also in the nation (317th out of 358), was bad enough. It also was the worst in the history of the UF program. Yes, the lowest since the NCAA adopted the 3-point line for the 1986-87 season. That would be 35 years ago. 

CHARTING THE GATORS 
Since the NCAA introduced a universal 3-point line for the 1986-87 college basketball season, Florida has shot below 35 percent 10 times over those 36 seasons, including an all-time worst 30.3 percent during 2021-22. Here's a breakdown of those 10 cross-eyed shooting seasons.

Pct.	Season	3FG-FGA	Record (SEC) / Postseason	Coach
.303	2021-22	269-887	20-14 (9-9) / NIT second round	Mike White
.305	1988-89	94-308	21-13 (13-5) SEC champions / NCAA 1st round	Norm Sloan
.313	2009-10	203-648	21-13 (9-7) / NCAA 1st round	Billy Donovan
.315	1995-96	258-809	12-16 (6-10) / None	Lon Kruger
.319	2015-16	218-674	21-15 (9-9) / NIT third round	White
.323	2014-15	218-674	16-17 (8-10) / None	Donovan
.334	2018-19	291-872	21-13 (11-7) / NCAA second round	White
.341	1989-90	115-337	7-21 (3-15) / None	Don DeVoe
.344	1991-92	125-363	19-14 (9-7) / NIT Final Four	Kruger
.347	2019-20	221-636	19-12 (11-7) / Canceled due to COViD	White

* For context, the all-time best Florida shooting team was the 1986-87 squad at .437, one of three times in program history the Gators hit at least 40 percent from long distance. The others were 1997-98 (.400) and 2006-07 (.409), the second of the back-to-back NCAA title seasons.  

An inability to knock down 3-point shots is not, in itself, a death knell to a team's success. Not at all. Take Arkansas, for example. The '21-22 Razorbacks won 28 games and reached the Elite Eight as a No. 4-seed in the NCAA field despite making just 30.4 from deep (one spot ahead of UF at 316th nationally). The Hogs, though, did some other things better and did not live and die by the 3-ball. Threes accounted for only 34.2 percent of their shot selection, a statistic ranked 260th nationally. 

The Gators, however, were not only poor 3-pointer shooters, but prolific ones. Despite making barely three of 10 from distance, nearly percent of the shots UF attempted last season were 3s. Only 21 teams in the country had a higher style component number than UF's 45.8, and only two of those teams (Alabama and Villanova, both NCAA Tournament teams) were from one of the six power conferences.
 

"That's a tough way to live," Florida assistant Kevin Hovde said this week. "Still, if you make just a few more, it's probably a different season."

That was the thinking of Mike White and his staff in what turned out to be their final turn in Gainesville; that the percentages would eventually even out and players like Jones (39 percent the previous two years at Penn State), Brandon McKissic (38 percent in four seasons at Missouri-Kansas City), Tyree Appleby (36 percent in two seasons at Cleveland State) and even Reeves, the freshman top-50 prospect and prep sniper, would inch their numbers up. Never happened. 

"I think it was the mental piece. Like everyone was in different head spaces and sometimes you could just see it," Reeves said. "I'm definitely not going to put it on the coaches. Guys just overthought some stuff last year. It was a team thing."  

Added Lane, the junior guard/forward: "We had some proven shooters last season. We should have been better than that."

Instead? How 'bout three consecutive games in December — at Oklahoma (loss), home against Texas Southern (loss) and North Florida (win) — of a combined 14-for-71. There was 6-for-22 at Auburn (loss), 7-for-31 against LSU (loss), 4-for-29 at Ole Miss (loss) and 5-for-22 at Kentucky (loss). The last four games of the season (Kentucky at home, Texas A&M in the SEC Tournament, then NIT games against Iona and at Xavier) the Gators made just 21 of 101 from the arc. Do math. Better yet, don't. 

"Honestly, even some of the games we won — like down in Fort Myers — I don't think we shot it that well," Reeves aid. 

Correct. When Appleby bombed in a scrambled, open-floor 3-pointer at the buzzer to beat Ohio State in the Fort Myers Tip-Off title game, it was the team's fourth make from deep on a night it shot 28.6 percent from the arc.    

That was then. Just how the '22-23 version of the Gators shoots the basketball remains to be seen, but heavy doses of offseason shooting drills combined with Coach Todd Golden's analytical vision for this team figures to make his first UF squad look different than the last. Golden wants to be a very good 2-point shooting team. He wants players to attack the basket, draw fouls and get to the free-throw line. 

The 3-point line? Yes, of course, Golden wants to shoot it well from there — and certainly avoid being among the 12-percent worst in all of college basketball, like last season — but he wants it to happen in the context of an offense in search of efficient shot-making of all kinds. 

"We want to take 3s," Golden said. "Good 3s."

In their first summer of workouts, the staff setup an on-going shooting competition involving all 15 players, with their aggregate scores updated and displayed on a grease board in the gymnasium at the Hugh Hathcock Basketball Complex for all to see. Free throws, spot-up stationary mid-range shots, moving mid-range, spot 3-pointers, shooting on the move, just to name a few. 

"From the summer to now, we've done way more shooting drills than we did last year," Jones said. "By keeping track of our scores it makes us want to get into the gym more because everybody wants to get to the top of that leader board." When the offseason gave way to preseason, wing Will Richard, the transfer from Belmont, was the overall shooting champ, followed by Jones, walk-on Alex Klatsky, point guard and St. Bonaventure transfer Kyle Lofton, freshman guard Denzel Aberdeen and Virginia Military Institute transfer guard Trey Bonham. No trophies or awards went to the high-point guys. Just bragging rights. 

And some good baseline data for the coaches to work from. 
 

"You really need the right guys taking the right shots and you have to hammer it every single day day," UF associate head coach Carlin Hartman said. "We want to give our guys a lot of freedom so they can feel good and comfortable on the court, but also want to make sure when they turn down a good shot, they see that; if they miss a guy who's open for a good shot, they have to see that. I don't know what happened last year. I watched a little bit. There were some open [missed] shots. Some of them were untimely shots, maybe a little early in the shot clock, maybe late in the clock, maybe the wrong guy taking it." 

Doesn't matter, anyway. What the Golden-led Gators will try to do on offense this season is get out in transition and look for a good shot in the first eight seconds of the possession clock. If it's not there, they'll get into the half-court offense, let Lofton, with his four-year career average of 5.2 assists per game, do his play-making thing, while getting their two-time All-SEC post man, 6-foot-11 Colin Castleton, as many touches as possible. 

At San Francisco last season, Golden's team — the program's first to reach the NCAA Tournament since 1997 — ranked 82nd in pace of play. That's pretty fast. His two previous teams, however, were 197th and 155th, respectively. His first Florida team likely will be somewhere around those latter numbers, given the luxury of playing through Lofton and Castleton. It's a strategy that should help avoid some of the late-clock panic 3s that were jacked by a team that ranked 267th in tempo a year ago.  

That's the plan, at least. 

"The more Colin and Kyle Lofton have the ball in their hands, the better the looks Myreon and Will Richard and Trey Bonham will get," Hartman said. "We're going to be confident they'll make a bunch of shots, too."