The losses keep mounting for the Gators women’s basketball team, and there doesn’t seem to be a clear solution to correct the problems that have hindered the team.
Florida suffered its worst loss of the season Monday night, a 77-42 defeat to No. 1 South Carolina at home that was over within the opening minutes. After sophomore Ronni Williams opened the scoring with a layup, the Gamecocks took over, using a balanced scoring attack to beat the Gators.
Florida (9-10, 1-5 Southeastern Conference) had no answer to the inside presence of the Gamecocks (18-0, 6-0 SEC), with UF’s post players being unable to defend the paint.
South Carolina was eager to dump the ball down low to forwards Aleighsa Welch and A’ja Wilson, who got everything they wanted on the way to scoring 46 points in the paint. Tiffany Mitchell led the way with 18 points on 8-for-10 shooting.
Coach Amanda Butler was disappointed with the team’s execution, saying the team practiced far better than they played against the Gamecocks.
"We gave them a lot of really easy looks in transition," Butler said. "We weren’t communicating, weren’t getting back, weren’t stopping the ball. We didn’t really do a good job in anything in transition."
Reeling from the loss of junior Antoinette Bannister, who was kicked off the team on Friday after her arrest for credit card theft, the Gators bench was sorely lacking in production.
"We’re just gonna really focus on what we have and what we can do," Butler said in reference to the loss of Bannister. "Losses and people that aren’t here - we’re not going to give that any energy. I think we have great potential on our bench."
Florida got just 23 points from its bench, with the majority of the points coming from Williams who had a team-best 12 for the Gators. Williams sat out for most of the second half after fouling out with 11:41 left to play.
Cassie Peoples has been unable to get out of the shooting slump that’s plagued her throughout SEC play. The redshirt junior guard went 1-for-12 from the field, her only points coming on a late jumper in the closing minutes, while turning the ball over four times for a Gators offense that was unable to find any form of consistency the entire night.
The strength of South Carolina left little room for error, and the Gamecocks frequently capitalized on Florida’s mistakes.
Kayla Lewis said the team needs to start playing the way they’ve practiced. Despite Florida being unable to execute like it knows how, Lewis said she’s trying not to get frustrated with the team’s flawed performance.
"Of course you don’t want to start the SEC 1-5," Lewis said. "As a leader of a team, your frustration trickles down to everybody else. Every day, I just try and go out and have a lot of effort and keep the team encouraged because there are so many positives ... I’ve never felt in any of the five losses that we’ve (been) outmatched. I think that we’ve self-inflicted a lot of the reasons that we lost games. Because of that, I think it’s on accountability and holding everybody to a high standard."
"If you watched our practices, you’d be surprised that we played the way we played because we practice very hard."
Follow Graham Hall on Twitter @Graham311
Sophomore Ronni Williams drives down the lane during Florida's 77-42 loss to No. 1 South Carolina on Monday in the O'Connell Center.
