Florida Gators Hand FSU Seminoles First Loss of the Season 68 - 52
by TrueCubbie on Nov 24, 2009 10:56 PM EST
in FSU Basketball
26 comments
The offensive machine that was the Florida State Seminoles through the first three games of the season got derailed. In a frustrating game, the Seminoles returned to their ways of old: turnovers. Coach Hamilton cannot be pleased with the decisions that were made on the court tonight; however this is not entirely on the players. For the second year in a row, the Seminoles have failed to effectively break the full court press. This team appeared anxious and flustered from the start. After the initial blows were landed, the Gators settled into their game plan and made their shots, some of which were exceedingly lucky. By hitting those shots, and going on long runs, the Gators were able to set up in their full court press. If they miss those shots, Florida State gets out in transition. The fact that the Seminoles do not have a reliable true point was exploited tonight.
In our game preview we stated the following:
1. Break the press early. Punish the Gators for being greedy on defense. If the Seminoles can break the press quickly and effectively, getting easy baskets the Gators will have to get back on defense. However, this could cause some trouble for the Noles. However, they have seen a lot of pressure late in games so far this season.
2. Establish the paint. Don't get intimidated by the Gators down low. They play physical defense and will likely get a lot of calls at home. This will be a long battle for our big men. Control the paint and force the Gators to shoot threes, which they are terrible at.
3. Keep the crowd out of it. Don't allow any big runs by the Gators. Use time-outs effectively. Keep the stadium quiet. This is an early road test for the Seminoles, no need to add extra pressure.
4. Be patient. This is going to be a close game for most of the contest. Stay calm and take what they give you. Don't lose focus.
**It was also noted that the Seminoles needed to have a TO% of less than 20% to have a shot at winning.
Continue reading to see the follow up to these points...
1. The press was effective and the Gators used it to their advantage. They capitalized on the opportunities that were provided to them by poor ball control/handling and errant passes. The Seminoles finished with 23 turnovers for a TO% of 32%. That will not cut it at the elite level against good opponents. Granted, the Gators had a TO% of 26%, which would typically not be sufficient to win on a regular basis. Advantage: Florida
2. Alabi had a relatively quiet game in comparison to previous. Gibson was quiet. Reid was quiet. The Seminoles front court contributed 10 of the 23 turnovers. They did, however, out rebound the Gators...by one and the differences in OReb% and DReb% were not significant. The Seminoles only blocked 3 shots. Tyus had a good game for the Gators and Vernon Macklin played good minutes. Statistically, the difference between the groups was not huge, so one could say it was a push. However, the Seminoles big men should have been more productive. Alabi needed more touches. Singleton got hot with his three early and then fell in love with it. He attempted 6 three point shots. This was a concern expressed by TNation in the season preview. Gibson did not have the opportunity to have the impact he should have during this game. Advantage: Florida
3. Florida made a number of runs during this game. The Seminoles demonstrated a stair case scoring pattern. Look at the game flows for the first three games of the year:
Now compare it to this scoring chart: (From scacchoops.com)
There are a lot of horizontal lines in that image. The previous game flows followed a nice steady increase without the pauses in scoring, meaning the Gator when on big runs, keeping the crowd in the game and flustering the Seminoles. Advantage: Florida
4. Flustered. Anxious. Careless mistakes. However, with about 10 minutes to go the Seminoles had the opportunity to get back in the game. But, it changed in one play, as articulately stated by one of our readers, Smash!:
down 5, with the ball on the break DeMercy doesn’t pass, but rather keeps it and gets called for the charge. That should have been an automatic 2 pts, potentially 3- and a 2 or 3 point game. Instead, it completely stopped all our momentum and we never got back in it.
The Seminoles defense did what it needed to in order to win this game. This was Florida's worst offensive efficiency of the season. They shot better from the three point line and did a nice job from the floor in general. The Seminoles couldn't make a basket and were rushed and had their worst shooting night of the year. We predicted the Gators to score 68 points and they did. This should be considered a success by the Noles, and pure luck on our estimates. The offense sputtered and couldn't quite climb out of the hole they dug.
At the end of the year, the Seminoles will be a better team than the Gators. This, we hope, is not what we should expect from the Seminoles for the rest of the year. There are number of big tests coming up in the next few days that will determine what kind of team this is. There is no such thing as a good loss. This was a reality check for the Seminoles who got off to a great start. Expect better things in the coming days. This was more of Florida State succumbing to the pressure of the Gators defense and making serious errors than Florida having an outstanding game.
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The Derwin Kitchen Experiment
Will determine the outcome of this season…
At the risk of being too obvious, FSU will go as does their PG. Unfortunately, Kitchen’s efforts so far this season have been unsatisfactory. There were signs early of the same old stamina issues. There were signs against Mercer with some careless, careless mistakes. And the Gators exposed this tonight.
As of today, Loucks is the best PG on FSU’s roster (see “highlight” #1-10 where Kitchen picks up his dribble at the opponents free throw line against the press; see “highlight” #11-20 of DK trying to attack a zone from the top of the key). And while I love the kid, LL is not the answer. He is just too slow for ACC play. Kitchen needs to take the reigns for FSU to be the best it can be and frankly this is the only excuse for the absolute refusal of CHam to make adjustments during the 1st half tonight.
That said, there may be another option… In case they were not forced to before with FSU’s size and athleticism, after tonight expect any team capable of playing zone against the Noles to play zone. If FSU can get enough ball handling from the Loucks-Dulkys-Snaer trio to get the ball across the timeline against pressure, CHam needs to move Kitchen off the ball and to the baseline. Here (and currently only here) he is quite effective against the zone.
Singleton showed signs of greatness and then disappeared for minutes on end like last year. Thumbs down to CHam for taking him out with 2 fouls when he was A. on a roll and B. the only player making things happen on the court (well positive happenings).
JD is JD. Hate on him for that bone-head charge, but that is what you get from the kid. All-in-all he played his game. Decent defense, good ball pressure, and a couple bone-head moves on offense. If teams press FSU – and they will – JD needs to eat the Predators minutes. I dont like it, but it is the best they got to give Singleton a blow. And yes, against the pressure Singleton needs to play the 4.
Against any press Singleton needs to be involved in the back court. Against man-pressure, he should be able to beat his man up the floor – especially with the Gs providing outlet relief. Against the zone he is a huge target with good hands and excellent court vision. Put him in the middle of the floor!
Gibson’s offensive instincts are amazing. His defensive instincts are amazingly non-existent.
Snaer had some good moments, but he also had some freshmen moments. His potential remains very, very high.
Does anyone know why Dulky’s rode the bench for a 20m stretch? Injury? Dog-house? I do recall him not moving towards the ball once or twice against the press right before leaving the game, but relative to the other errors on the floor that certainly did not deserve a 20m benching.
Kudos to Donovan for giving the blueprint to defeating FSU 4 games into the season. Personally Im not a fan of the style of play BillyD prefers, but he just embarrassed CHam. Plus the man still hoops it up against the students with much success.
the blueprint wasn't that hard to form
basic basketball. You defeat undisciplined untested teams with a lot of pressure. You make up for height with a zone.
to fix this, you prepare your team by creating full court plays to beat the trap. You beat traps with passing, not dribbling. If everyone knows where to go and what to do you can out prepare the other team.
You beat the zone by moving the ball quickly and making the zone stretch to a side, find an open man, and shoot volume 3’s. If you hit enough, the team will stop playing the zone.
Its all an easy fix assuming the coach can find and address the problems.
great analysis
LL has great court vision and needs to be in the game to direct the offense (particularly against zone) but will always struggle handling b/c of the lack of quickness. DK isn’t a PG but at the moment is the best handler. Ideally though, he would be a slasher to get his shot…which is what he does best. So you press and drop back into zone. Great by Donovan…which is why, I suppose, he has a couple of NCs. He destroyed our guard combos. If you zone us, we beat you w/ LL & DD, but they can’t handle press. If you press back to man we beat you w/ DK & MS but they are less effective against zone. Throw in that zone & press limits Alabi and you have the result. Good point on CS at 4 to beat press. I couldn’t watch. did we ever go small to handle this (ie LL, DK, MS, JD, CS)? Best combo passers and shooters in game while enough height to not be completely everwhelmed.
You share my frustrations w/ CS. He has to develop an O identity…and it ain’t hoisting up 3s. He is a mismatch at 3 or 4…even in ACC. so clear out & let him post 3s down low or clear out & let him take 4s off the dribble. I think that is key to this team having another option after Alabi. snaer doesn’t seem to be ready yet.
Please TC listen to me
They are too sloppy. Coach Hamilton just doesn’t teach skill positions well and I don’t know if anyone is there to teach ball handling and the like—or even if there is enough practice time for it.
FSU is going to kill teams and get killed. Thats what happens when you have good size, good athleticism and a complete lack of discipline with the ball.
Been watching too much football
Skill positions = Offensive skills such as ball handling, footwork and passing
You can tell that coach hamilton runs plenty of shoot arounds—but he just cannot field a team with any discipline EVER
this will be important
it kinda makes you wonder how good he is as a coach. He can’t make adjustments on the fly but he can gather himself at halftime and address our issues. I think he’s good at macro level strategies but can’t help with the minute to minute micromanagement.
We’re still young though, Kitchen is the defacto leader and he’s only a 2nd year guy (in division 1 not eligibility). Its rare to count on a guy that inexperienced to run the team as a point guard and be counted on to score as well. Some guys just cant do both. Maybe we need to use him off ball more.
Well--I can just say from experience
Basketball isn’t a game of rocket science. You can watch all the damn game tape you want but what it really comes down to is your ability to maintain a high level of athleticism and focus for as a sustained period as you can.
Billy Donovan has been running the full court press since the beginning of time
Hamilton has been running this stupid ass man press defense where he rotates guys every 5-10 minutes and everyone in the rotation gets between the mid-teens to high-twenties in playing time.
Assuming all variables equal and relative to one another…
…A full court press for the defense isn’t tiresome (the one Donovan plays—the Diamond). A full court press for the offense IS tiresome. Especially for big men (technically its tiresome for the 3 and 4 on defense—but you are generally willing to give that up if you commit to playing it)
Basketball is a game of systems and you study the systems and implement them in accordance to your highest chance for success.
FSU has big athletic guys down low and shitty ball handling.
So what do you do if you are UF—a team that has pretty much written the book on the diamond full court press…
You run it and watch FSU’s only strengths—shooting and size…go to the way side.
Its just bullshit. He can’t coach. I could out coach that ass clown and I’m not even shooting the shit.
He is too stubborn in his systems and his position coaches either are too incompetent or don’t get enough time to give these guys the skills they need to succeed at this level.
Its just more of the same. With Hamiliton as the coach its all up to the players at an individual level to find a way to blossom.
AND YOUTH IN BASKETBALL DOESN"T MEAN SHIT. The best players are out within a year. If you lose a game on size its youth. If you lose a game because of your lack of basic fundamentals—well, you didn’t attend enough sessions @ 5 Star. And your coach is an assclown.
i agree with some of that
though you’re pretty deluded to think that youth in basketball doesn’t make a difference. Experience means everything when it comes to winning.
Look at the great basketball programs and you find a core of great players developed through coaching and experience. The Duke’s, Michigan state, UNC, UConn, Syracuse, etc all get good by taking talented players and building them into a unit over 2 or 3 years.
Look at the teams that take the one and done players and show me their success.
Other than that, yeah Hamilton sucks.
Optimal class is a team dominated by Soph-Juniors
I can’t even begin to describe how early entry has redefined and shaped the college basketball world; but I can tell you that the teams that have been having success on the basketball floor since the turn of the century have not looked like the ones before it.
I think you can go back to Rhode Island, or the 2002 Gators, or the Syracuse team that won the national championship, or the OU team that played for the championship…or the Texas team that rode a freshman to the sweet 16.
Teams that have shots at titles have at least 3-4 highly contributing Freshman/Sophmores and the rest are Junior/Senior types that either will never play in the league or are late bloomers.
In the case of UNC…they had Ty Lawson and Tyler Hansborough—a guy that has written the book on how to dominate college basketball without any real talent or footwork; Lawson…I thought…was going to be terrible in the league…But I’ve been hearing he’s been playing at a high level and I’d bet that is because of his wider frame for his height…but I digress…
The volatility of college basketball has made it so that the best teams are generally Soph-Jun teams
if you look back at the last 6 national champions
they are lead by mostly juniors and seniors with a few contributing sophmores and freshman.
UNC you already know about
kansas was lead by Chalmers and Rush both juniors
UF made a run with mostly sophomores, their second championship team is an anomaly so it shouldn’t be included (no one wins a championship and then everyone decides to come back)
The 2005 UNC team was mostly juniors
The 2004 Uconn team was mostly juniors and seniors with several contributing freshman.
With the exception of UF’s first championship most teams are anchored by a group of 3 juniors or seniors (of this group one or two become nba starters) with possibly one or two stud underclassman.
we’ve really deviated from my main point though. Experience matters because the most successful teams develop over a few years. The “one and done” teams like memphis or UCLA can generally ride their all world talent into the tournament but eventually fall to a well coached team full of juniors.
This is why kentucky wont win it all this year.
the noles are way too sloppy with the ball
This game reminds me of the Northwestern game early last year. Way too many careless turnovers. This was a game that the noles could have and should have won.
The turning point was the demarcy gibson 2 on 1 break where demarcy selfishly refuses to give up the rock to a wide open gibson and then misses the basket and gets called for charging, If he gives up the ball to Gibson then noles would have closed the gap tp 3 points. After that play the noles lost all momentum and then the gators went on a run to essentially put the game out of reach.
I am a Temple grad and am used to John Chaney’s dogged refusal to accept turnovers by his players. Temple under Chaney always averaged less than 10 turnovers a game.
Hamilton needs to be as tough on his players sloppy play as Chaney was with his teams
im the same way
i follow the Jim Calhoun way of coaching. As soon as a player misses an assignment or plays lazy you pull him, coach him on the sidelines, then throw him back in until he makes another mistake.
My coach in highschool did the same thing.
I agree on the PG situation
The noles especially in the first half lacked any kind of offensive rythym. In addition they did not make the gators pay for their agressive press. The way to beat the press is to find your wide open players downcourt
TC
Did you ever watch UM when Hamilton was there?
A few thoughts from attending the game down in Gunsville
- The band plays no music newer than from the mid-80s, with hearty rousers like “Wooly Bully” and “You can call me Al.” At least our band sounds better and plays cooler music.
- I like how UF gives their students an entire section the length of the court on the court. Just smart; students are the loudest, and I really think that affected us tonight; we played very tight; a lot of falling away from the rim on offensive shots.
- A lot of people left early (around the 4:00 mark). Not sure if that’s normal or the overflow from a “culture of winning.” I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
- I like how Florida’s athletic centers (stadium, bball, baseball) are all co-located right on campus. Well done.
- Snaer is not God’s gift to basketball. Florida’s G Walker schooled him defensively on a one-on-one in the open court and took the ball from him like candy from a baby. Snaer has many areas to improve upon. Would like to see him as a combo 1/2 guard by the time he leaves FSU, a la Toney Douglas.
- Our lack of a true PG hurt us this game, and will continue to do so against guard-rich teams, or teams that press and force us to bring the ball up the court with multiple ball handlers.
- Girls at every college are smokin’ hot. Yowzas.
- Gainesville traffic sucks; missed the first 8 minutes of the game sitting in traffic trying to get to the stadium.
- Just bein honest; UF’s fanbase has got to be 99.9% white.
Walker is a superstar waiting to happen
I wonder if he ran track in high school, he can flat out move. As opposed to Kitchen who is quick, Walker is fast and quick.
Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness - and there's a big difference.
- Ty Cobb
Dulkys
…needed to play a lot more, but he did make a couple of pretty bad mistakes. Not only on defense, on offense too. I can remember a break where we had numbers and Dulkys was running with someone else, but instead of going to the hoop for a pass and easy layup, he cuts out to the corner leaving our guy 1-on-1 with the defender. You can guess what happened there.
Why are Ryan Ried and Luke Louckson on the court so damn much?
They contributions elsewhere hardly make up for the fact that they are turnover machines.
"It boils down to one of two things: It's either the horses or the jockeys. And we think we have some pretty good horses."
Loucks
sees the whole court & is a really good passer which makes your O lots better. He’s the only one on this team that has that. Of course, you have to hide or he has to improve his quickness and, thus, handling liabilities. The only way to do that is to play him. He either improves & becomes a pretty good ACC PG or he is never able to do it. But you have to play him to find out.
Reid I don’t know. Assume is the SR leadership & toughness angles, but would like to see less if Shannon can play.
Wrong Singleton has great vision and understanding of the game. He brought energy and leadership when he was in. He started the second half and FSU went on a tear with Loucks running point. and Kitchen at the off. Can I conjecture if Demercy makes the pass what Gibson does with it?
"I am not now at all sure that the tendency to treat the whole thing as a kind of vast game is really good - certainly not for me who find that kind of thing only too fatally attractive." - J R R Tolkein
I disagree with the last statement
FSUs turnovers where a result of UFs outstanding defense.
Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness - and there's a big difference.
- Ty Cobb
I am talking about the 2 in gereral
They lead the team last year in TO per min and contribute very little in points score or rebounding
"It boils down to one of two things: It's either the horses or the jockeys. And we think we have some pretty good horses."
Your good RaysnNoles
I was talking about the last sentence of the analysis. I agreed with most of TrueCubbies write-up, which are always excellent, just not the last part.
Speed is a great asset; but it's greater when it's combined with quickness - and there's a big difference.
- Ty Cobb
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