Takeaways from Florida basketball’s back-breaking home loss to Vandy
It may have been the dagger for Florida when it comes to the Gators’ NCAA Tournament hopes.
Florida had its first loss of the season to a bad team, although anyone who has watched Vanderbilt of late knows better.
The Commodores shot 48% (as did Florida) and pulled away at the end to win, 88-80, as UF’s once impenetrable defense looked slow and ineffective against the Commodores.
The loss is bad because Vandy, despite a win over Tennessee earlier in the week, came in at No. 99 in the NET rankings.
And what is the deal with Vanderbilt handing Florida bad losses in football and basketball?
What happened
Photo by James Gilbert/Getty Images
Florida has not played well on defense in the last three games, none of them worse than this one.
Vanderbilt, now 13-12 and 6-6 in the league, couldn’t miss early and never really went cold.
The Commodores made 12 threes in the game compared to Florida’s two.
It was a strange game with so little defense being played that only two fouls were called in the first 20 minutes.
The Gators had some nice possessions to stay in the game, but some bad ones late.
If there was a dagger to the dagger, it was a three made by Vanderbilt center Liam Robbins with 2:45 to play to put Vanderbilt up nine.
In the first half, both teams shot better than 50 percent. Vandy led 42-41 thanks to seven made three-point attempts and 17 points from Robbins.
Robbins scored 13 of the first 18 points for the Commodores. It was a wild and fast first half with no stoppages in play until more than 10 minutes were gone.
Florida made only one of 10 shots from beyond the arc, but received an offensive jolt from struggling [autotag]Kowacie Reeves[/autotag], who had seven points in seven minutes.
The Gators got out in front midway through the second half, but went cold and missed multiple opportunities to keep the game close late.
What it means
James Gilbert/Getty Images
It’s not good. That is three straight losses for the Gators and a 13-12 overall record, 6-6 in the SEC. The one thing Florida needed to do was win enough games to make the last six games of the SEC schedule meaningful. It’s not impossible to still win enough games to make the tourney, but way less likely.
Player of the Game: Vanderbilt
James Gilbert/Getty Images
Liam Robbins is a 7-footer with a decent post game and a soft shot from the outside. He is also 23 years old and on his third school. So. Maybe we didn’t see a career-high coming from him. He finished with 32 points and also had 10 rebounds and four blocks, three on [autotag]Colin Castleton[/autotag].
Player of the Game: Florida
James Gilbert/Getty Images
It’s difficult to make Castleton the player of the game when he was dominated on one end of the floor. So, we’ll go with [autotag]Riley Kugel[/autotag]. The freshman had 18 points despite missing all four of his three-point attempts. He also had four rebounds.
Inside the numbers
James Gilbert/Getty Images
This is an even better indication of how little defense was played in a game Vanderbilt coach Jerry Stackhouse called “entertaining.” There were only eight turnovers in the game. Florida lost despite turning the ball over only three times. Another example of how we have no idea what team is showing up on a nightly basis.
He said it
Matt Pendleton-USA TODAY Sports
“It really hurts. We really needed a win and we didn’t do what we were supposed to do.” – Castleton
Next up
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Florida faces another team with a low NET ranking when the Gators take on Ole Miss Wednesday night at 6:30 p.m. EST in Exactech Arena. The Rebels are 10-15 and 2-10 in SEC play after a three-point loss to South Carolina Saturday. They went into that game with a NET of 117.
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