I was originally going to write this last weekend when Florida was still struggling, but then I watched Friday’s game. And then I watched Sunday’s game.
Wow, what a weekend for Florida.
They came into the Charleston Classic as probably the most disappointing team in the country, with two losses to Florida State and UConn, and had a six-point win against Towson that was tied with just over a minute to go.
In the first half they got a taste of what their success looks like, having a 16-point lead at the break, despite Kerry Blackshear not scoring at all, but provided a lot of off-the-ball help on both sides of the ball. However, disaster struck when he was ejected 90 seconds into the second half for elbowing Hawks junior Taylor Funk in the face. St. Joe’s played much better than they did in the second half, outscoring them by 12 but Florida held on for a 70-62 win. Then, people believed that he was supposed to be the senior leader, and can’t be getting thrown out of games for dirty plays like that that affect a team’s chances to win, especially in the first game of an early-season tournament. They won, but it wasn’t convincing.
However, they didn’t let yet another miscue bother them. They went out again not even 24 hours later and thrashed Miami, winning 78-58 in a game that saw Blackshear lead the team with 20 points on 6-12 shooting and also add 11 rebounds, freshman sensation Scottie Lewis added 13 points and eight rebounds while Keyontae Johnson had 12 and seven. As a team, they shot 53.6% to Miami’s 41.8%. To me, this is the game that has turned their season around so far. They got a complete game from Blackshear and the team as a whole played a 40-minute game and they realized what they could be if they can do this game in and game out.
On Sunday, they beat then-18th ranked Xavier in the championship game in the tournament 70-65, where the Gators had four guys in double figures in Johnson (15), Andrew Nembhard (15), Blackshear (14) and Noah Locke (13). Blackshear had 10 rebounds as well.
Moving forward, they need their key guys to play complete games, because they for sure have the raw talent to have a lot of success in the SEC. That success will lead to a deep run in the NCAA Tournament, which is this team’s ultimate goal. Florida reached the Final Four in 2014 as part of the program reaching four straight Elite Eight’s from 2011-2014 when the program was still under Billy Donovan, this team is arguably on par with those teams when it comes to talent, and more talented than current coach Mike White’s team that made the Elite Eight in 2017.
Winning an early-season tournament like this will always give a team a ton of confidence moving forward through the rest of the non-conference season, because admittedly it can be drag for a team, especially a power-five team, where they are expected to win most of their games and a lot of those games won’t matter in the long run, and really only do if they end up taking a really bad loss, like what have been if the Gators had lost to Towson, or another example of it finished off with a certain SEC program in Lexington losing to the Missouri Valley’s Evansville. Granted, those losses are few and far between, but they can get old if you’re winning every game by 30.
These early-season tournaments have a lot of benefit for teams, you’re going to end up playing a quality opponent or two in them. Honestly, that first game is the most important because that’s the one that decides what teams you play for the rest of the tournament, and more often than not they’re the weaker ones. If Florida had lost that St. Joseph’s game, the outlook on their team would be a lot different.
People are looking at them with a more positive attitude. The AP committee rewarded them for winning this tournament by putting them back in the top 25, hitting the board at #24 when Monday’s rankings came out. If they can build off of this momentum moving forward, people will forget about that slow start.
AJ Hoops 