The Florida Gators (9-4, 0-1 SEC) want to play games at a frantic pace and at the same time don’t want to play frantically. Florida has a fast and athletic team and it behooves them to get up and down the court and move the ball around and make other teams work. At the same time, they have to stay within themselves and not do more than they are capable. And when mistakes are made, they have to guard against the negative emotions that slow them down.
Florida held a three-point lead on Alabama at halftime on Wednesday and then the Crimson Tide got in the Gators’ heads and things changed drastically just a few minutes into the second stanza of the eventual 83-70 loss. The Tide went on a quick run, forcing 11 turnovers in the first 10 minutes of the second half and capitalizing on the turnovers at the offensive end to push them to the eventual win.
Florida has been working on gearing up to be tougher as the SEC slate continues Saturday at 8 pm in Auburn, a game that will be seen on ESPN2. Florida head coach Mike White kind of likes how his team responded in practice the last two days.
“Really quick turn, of course, from yesterday to today,” White said Friday afternoon before they set off for Auburn. “I thought we handled both workouts really well, from a maturity standpoint. Put in a lot of work these last couple days, mentally and physically. We’ve gotten some stuff done.”
White and company used the last two days to really stress the importance of playing a full game and not getting complacent after the first half.
“That stretch -- 15 and a half minutes maybe down to 12 and a half, something like that -- that was the difference in the game,” White said of the second half letdown. “Made some mistakes in the first half, of course, and then even early second half and late second half I still think we could have done better. But that stretch of live ball turnovers, shot selection, transition defense and lack of blocking out was the biggest part of the game. That cost us right there.”
The players think they just didn’t come out of the locker room with the same mindset. Alabama just flat took it to them and the Gators had no answer.
“We lost our edge,” senior guard Brandon McKissic said. “We talked about it as a team. We lost our edge in the second half. We didn’t appear to do that in the first half, we were physical. They were really dominating us the way they did in the second half on the boards. Turnovers affected us as much too. So we came back to practice and took an emphasis on turnovers and physicality and making sure you get hits. You know, holding us more accountable for those things. Obviously you see it doesn’t help us at all not getting bodies on bodies and getting those rebounds and securing those possessions because we do play great defense and you can’t secure a rebound. So that’s what we focused on.”
White needs his guys to understand that in the SEC there are no nights off, no moments off.
“You can get away against certain teams with some missed hits in the non-conference,” White said. “Maybe in the SEC 10 years ago. Right now, you can't. Especially against a team like that, with length and versatility and motors, athleticism, guys flying to the rim, and it'll be no different. Heck, it could be even a more proficient offensive rebounding effort at Auburn Arena, you know, with a team playing similar type personnel, playing at home with a ton of energy. So we're gonna miss some block-outs. You're never going to be perfect in basketball, but if we miss a lot, we don't have a chance to win this one.”
McKissic says they just need to work on having a continuous energy level and they have done that in practice the last two days.
“I think it goes to our preparation,” the tenacious defending guard said. “There was at practice where we had the first of practice was really, really good and we got to the end and we dropped off. So it’s all about our habits, and it goes back to practice for us. We have to put together two halves of practice before we can put two halves to a game. So that’s what we focused on, where we really focused on the last couple of days having full complete practices where we were really locked in from minute one to the last minute of practice.“
It also has to do with emotions. The Gators get streaky at times and they found themselves Wednesday in two bad streaks of not making shots and turning the ball over. That played with their minds a little bit.
“You know we’re an emotional team. We have a lot of high energy, high energy playing, a lot of high energy guys,” McKissic said. “When things are going well, obviously it’s fine when things going well. But when a couple of things go bad, we had that little emotional swing. So it just wasn’t going –- keeping our emotions and not getting too low, not getting too high. Just kind of staying in that constant level of emotion where we’re keeping our edge but also being mindful of what we’re doing because we need to compete at the best level.”
Florida eventually had 20 turnovers in the loss to Alabama. They aren’t going to win any games with that many times handing the ball to the other team. So it seems they worked on making things a little simpler and just play a more natural game.
“We understood that we turned the ball over a lot,” McKissic said. “That’s not like us so we just took a lot more emphasis in practice and every time we turned it over we run. So it kind of instills that you don’t need to turn the ball over and be careless. Valuing the ball is one of the biggest keys, not only in this game but for us in general. So you know, taking more emphasis in protecting the ball concept has been helpful for us. Our turnovers have gone down. You can see it in the past two days, you know making more simple reads and we’re making (things complicated). You know you can’t change overnight too, so we do have our times where we turn the ball over, but we’re human. So it’s just getting through those and making (simpler) reads more consistently than turning the ball over. It’s been a big emphasis.”
“It’s hard, but you keep doing it over and over again and repping it out then it gets a little easier. So we just keep going at it and we’ll clean it up for sure.”
Having been a high strung point guard at Ole Miss in his playing days, White understands the situation the guys are in with trying to make too much happen when it just isn’t there. But he doesn’t want to keep things too simplified.
“I think there's a happy medium, you know. I've been doing it a while now, and even thinking back as a player, you know,” White said. “As a player, you want to play free-minded, and you want to play with instincts and play downhill with confidence. And if you're playing and handling it, making passes scared to death to turn the ball over, you're obviously not going to be as aggressive as you need to be. But you also can't be careless and be too carefree in terms of ball security. So it's got to be at the forefront of your mind if you're going to be a good decision-maker, ball-handler, passer.
“Particularly with this team right now with the way that we're turning the ball over. It's been our biggest offensive deficiency glaringly since the opening tip of the season. I really don't want to hear ‘well, you know, I'm not playing quite as aggressive right now because I'm afraid to turn–’. Well, we need to all be afraid to turn over a little bit, you know, to a certain extent, and find that happy medium.”
"difficult" - Google News
January 08, 2022 at 09:19AM
https://ift.tt/3HFMdI6
Gators have to guard against emotions and making things too difficult - 247Sports
"difficult" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2VWzYBO
https://ift.tt/3d5eskc
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Gators have to guard against emotions and making things too difficult - 247Sports"
Post a Comment