Florida Gators

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — When the Florida Gators returned from holiday break Christmas night their most recent game was the disappointing loss to Oklahoma in the Jumpman Invitational at Charlotte, N.C. five nights earlier. Todd Golden's team played well enough to win that game, only to be undermined by their worst outside shooting performance of the season. In meeting with his players, though, Golden didn't focus on what they did wrong that game. He zeroed in on what the the Gators did right over the previous month versus the first month of the season. 

The staff that relies so heavily on analytics sat its players down and put the numbers on the video screen for them to see. In the five games since a humbling/humiliating 29-point defeat against West Virginia in Portland, Ore., the Gators had improved their overall defense nearly 10 fold, to the point they were ranked among the top five in the nation over that previous month's span, as they readied to open the Southeastern Conference season at Auburn. 

Numbers don't lie. UF left the Phil Knight Legacy ranked 100th in the country in defensive efficiency, yet in the five weeks (and five games) that followed the Gators had posted the fifth-best defensive digits nationally, with just three wins (Florida A&M, Stetson and Ohio) and two losses (then-unbeaten Connecticut and OU) to show for it. 

"We're getting better," Golden assured his guys with the help of the visual aids.

And then, on Dec. 28, the Gators went to Auburn and played the defending SEC champion and 20th-ranked Tigers even for about 39 minutes before falling 61-58 in one of the toughest environments in college basketball. AU won its 25th straight home game and Florida came home with yet another loss to an outstanding opponent.

Oh, and with even better defensive numbers.

[Read senior writer Chris Harry's "Pregame Stuff" setup here]

When the Gators (7-6, 0-1) take on Texas A&M (8-5, 1-0) in their SEC home opener Wednesday night at Exactech Arena/O'Connell Center they'll do so in dire need of a win and also as the No. 4 overall defensive team in the country over the last six weeks of the college basketball season. Is that a small sample size? Sure. But it also includes those games against UConn, Oklahoma and Auburn, a trio of almost-certain NCAA Tournament teams, and when rolled together is something the program  can lean on as it dives deeper into conference play.

"We've kept teams out of transition, I think that's one of the biggest things," fifth-year senior guard Myreon Jones said Tuesday in pinpointing the team's improvement on the defensive end of the floor. "Early, we weren't getting offensive rebounds, or we'd turn the ball over and teams would score easily on us, and I think we've built on just getting back [and] stopping the ball. We notice teams couldn't score on us in the half court, so we just focused on stopping teams in transition and make them play half court."

CHARTING THE GATORS 
Florida's defensive efficiency ranking, according to KenPom.com, through its first seven games. 

Rank	Team	Points per 100 possessions
1st	Houston (6-0, 0-0)	73.9
2nd	Mississippi State (6-0, 0-0)	77.4
3rd	Tennessee (5-1, 0-0)	77.6
4th	Sam Houston State (4-0, 0-0)	79.4
5th	Northwestern (5-0, 0-0)	79.7
100th	Florida (4-3, 0-0)	96.7

Florida's defensive efficiency ranking over the previous six games. 

Rank	Team (record)	Points per 100 possessions
1st	Tennessee (7-1, 2-0)	79.8
2nd	Rutgers (5-3, 2-1)	81.2
3rd	Bradley (6-2, 3-1)	83.4
4th	Florida (3-3, 0-1)	84.2
5th	UCLA (8-0, 4-0)	85.0

Again, it can be hard to quantify improvement without the wins to show for it (especially for fans), but there's still (at least0 19 games to go in the season and that's a lot of basketball to play. 

And, to Jones' point, consider that in UF's three losses through the PK85, the Gators gave up an average of 18 points in transition in each of those games. In the three losses since, that number has been cut it half (9.0 per game). 

Those six opponents, minus the free reign of transition 3s and facing a more tenacious Gators' defense in the half court, have combined to shoot just 37.8 percent from the floor.  "Credit our guys. They've been stingy and hard to score on that way. We've been able to dictate tempo," Golden said. "If we can continue to get teams to operate in the half court, we should be in good shape."

If UF can shore up its defensive rebounding numbers (Auburn had 17 offensive boards and A&M is one of the nation's best on the offensive glass), the Gators would check another box on that end of the floor. 

The offense? Well, that's something Florida is going to have to figure out. After going a woeful 2-for-22 in the loss to OU, the Gators chased that by going 3-for-19 at Auburn. That's 5-for-22 over the two games, which converts to 12.2 percent in a pair of games that were decided in the final minutes. UF-Oklahoma was a 3-point game with just over two minutes to go. UF-Auburn was tied with just over a minute left. 

If Florida shoots a barely competent 20 percent from distance in those two games the outcomes maybe have been different. Think about that. 

On second thought, don't. The Gators aren't going to. 

"Stay the course," Golden said. "Early in the year, when we were playing the better opponents on our schedule, I thought we struggled to get good shots. The last two games, I don't think that was the case. I thought our guys did a really good job of manufacturing some good ones. We just didn't knock them down." 

But they did convert 57 percent of their 2-point shots against an Auburn defense, one of the best in the country, that had only surrendered plus-50 percent in two other games; both losses. 

So there are reasons to be encouraged, but what the Gators need more than anything are victories to validate the progress they've made. 

"Everyone knows, we've just got to win," Jones said. "It's not because we haven't gotten one of those big wins, yet. It's about confidence. And [winning] will help us down the line."