At halftime of Saturday’s game against South Carolina, it looked like Florida’s road woes would continue.
The Gators were playing well and their ball movement was as strong as it’s been all year, but the scoreboard in Columbia still read 41-40, Gamecocks.
Then, Florida’s un-luck ran out.
South Carolina stopped hitting prayers and UF — clearly the superior team for the third straight road game — came through in the way it couldn’t against Rutgers and Tennessee, eventually pulling away for a 79-65 win.
While Florida’s 53.2 percent shooting and 19 assists versus 10 turnovers provide a stark contrast to previous road games, the biggest difference was defense.
After a week of practices with bubbles over the baskets to shift the Gators’ focus to defending and rebounding, the results showed Saturday.
Donovan, normally hesitant to apply full-court pressure without a few thousand Rowdy Reptiles backing him up, showed no such concerns against South Carolina.
Florida harassed the Gamecocks for the majority of the game, and while the results did not necessarily shine through in the box score, Donovan had his wishes satisfied.
“When you’re at home, it’s easier to play defense,” Donovan said after Tuesday’s win against Georgia, a game in which the Bulldogs were held to 48 points. “No question, the crowd, the comfortable environment. Can we now flip that switch mentally and be able to take that to the road?”
The Gators’ answer was an emphatic yes.
Florida held South Carolina to 41.8 percent shooting despite the usual road misfortunes.
Bruce Ellington unintentionally banked in three baskets worth eight points. Brenton Williams, who entered the game 3 of 13 from beyond the arc, hit a 24-foot shot over Kenny Boynton and Erving Walker just minutes after knocking down a desperation 26-footer. Boynton said Williams wasn’t even in the scouting report.
Take away those five makes worth 14 points, and South Carolina would’ve scored 51 points on 32.7 percent shooting.
That’s the type of effort it takes to win major college basketball games on the road.
The Gators are a team that relies heavily on their offense, and as the nation’s leader in adjusted offensive efficiency entering Monday according to kenpom.com, it’s right for them to do so.
But, as Donovan constantly preaches, shots aren’t always going to fall. Getting a ball with a diameter of about 9 inches to go through a hoop with a diameter of 18 inches from distances of up to 24 or 25 feet is an inexact science. Because of sheer probability, some days it’s going to go well and some days it won’t.
In the face of this variance, Donovan wants to control things that have nothing to do with luck or chance, like defense. Effort, toughness and positioning are the same against every team in every arena, and the Gators need to be able to keep them constant even as opposing crowds surge.
That was the point of the intense week of practices, and that work paid off on Saturday.
Struggling to play that way on the road isn’t a conundrum unique to Florida. Teams currently ranked in the AP Top 25 are 65-42 in true road games and 307-23 in all others.
That’s just the way college basketball works.
Donovan has admitted that learning to bring their ‘A’ game outside of Florida is an ongoing process for the Gators, but at least they have figured out where to start: defense.
Contact Greg Luca at gluca@alligator.org.
