Florida basketball coach Todd Golden isn’t sweating how UF has started its defense of its national title.
The No. 18 Florida Gators (5-4) suffered another close loss to an elite opponent, falling 77-73 against No. 5 UConn at the Jimmy V Classic in New York City on Dec. 9.
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Of UF’s four losses, three have come against teams currently ranked in the top five of the USA Today men’s college basketball poll (No. 3 Duke, No. 2 Arizona) by an average margin of 3.7 points.
“Collectively, we’re all disappointed that our record’s not a little better right now,” Golden said. “But I think you would have to be really soft-minded to not realize that we’ve competed against really good teams and been in a position to win or play down to the last second against the teams that, over the first two months of the year, people would argue are probably top-five, top-six teams in America.”
Overall, Florida has faced seven major-conference teams in its first nine games, with wins over Miami, Florida State and Providence and a loss to TCU. Florida has traveled more than 12,000 air miles so far, losing to Arizona in Las Vegas, TCU in San Diego, at Duke and against UConn in New York City.
“It’s a great opportunity to evaluate what we what we’ve been good at, where we haven’t been good enough,” Golden said. “And I do think the environments in which we played will pay dividends as we start conference play when we go into Missouri on opening night.
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“We’ve played at Duke; we hadn’t had that experience last year. I do think battle testing our guys, if we can be mentally tough enough to get through it and understand we’re not quite there yet, but we’re close, it’ll definitely pay dividends for SEC play.”
Where Florida basketball needs to improve
Florida will continue its challenging non-conference slate when it faces George Washington (8-3) at the Orange Bowl Classic in Sunrise on Dec. 13 (2:30 p.m., ESPN2). The Colonials are coming off a 70-58 loss to Delaware on Dec. 10 but have posted wins over USF (99-95) and Old Dominion (96-73) earlier this season.
“They’re very, very good offensively,” Golden said. “They play close to four-guard-ish-type players. They spread you out. They’re a good early offense, ball-screen team. They had a disappointing effort last night, and I’m sure we’re going to get a team that’s pretty fired up and emotional to try to flip that.”
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Perimeter shooting and depth remain the two big concerns for UF going forward. UConn outscored Florida 20-6 in bench points, which played a big factor in the outcome. Center Micah Hanlodgten and guard Urban Klavzar, UF’s top two options off the bench, combined for just five points on 2 of 8 shooting.
Sophomore guard Isaiah Brown and freshman swingman CJ Ingram have seen time early this season as well. Brown didn’t play against UConn. Ingram played close to 10 minutes off the bench, winding up with 1 points, 1 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 blocked shot and 1 turnover.
“We need our bench to be better for sure,” Golden said. “We feel like we have pieces that are capable, but we just haven’t been consistent enough over the course of the year and definitely our bench was a strong suit for us last year, we could play eight or nine pretty consistently, we’re not there yet, we’re still kind of looking for one or two of those guys to emerge.”
As for 3-point shooting, Florida stands at last in the SEC and 348th nationally at 27.4% (67-245). Golden says for the most part, Florida is taking good shots. Klavzar has been UF’s best 3-point shooter this season (36.7% 18-49), followed by junior forward Thomas Haugh (34.7%, 17-49). But UF’s starting backcourt of Xaivian Lee and Boogie Fland have combined to shoot 21.7% (23-106) from beyond the arc.
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“The things we want to get are open threes,” Golden said. “So, it’s like we want to make sure aren’t taking too many contested ones. We have to make sure we aren’t taking too many off the bounce.”
Golden was pleased with the shot selection against UConn, as the Gators attempted just 15 3-pointers against the Huskies, making four.
“I think seven or eight of them were good, two of them were late, out of system shots, five of them were contested, probably,” Golden said. “I think we were 1 of 6 on our open threes. We have to be better than that. You know, we have to at least make two and you would expect to make 50% of those.”
Golden provides update on Florida basketball guard AJ Brown
One player who could potentially improve both depth and shooting is guard A.J. Brown, who is practicing but hasn’t appeared in a game so far this season while recovering from offseason shoulder surgery. Brown, a transfer from Ohio and the older brother of Isaiah Brown, shot 38.8% from 3-point range for the Bobcats last season (54-139).
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At this point, Golden is mulling whether to redshirt Brown because he missed time over the summer.
“We’re still evaluating, still looking,” Golden said. “We’ll probably definitely make a decision before SEC play.”
Kevin Brockway is The Gainesville Sun’s Florida beat writer. Contact him at kbrockway@gannett.com. Follow him on X @KevinBrockwayG1. Read his coverage of the Gators’ national championship basketball season in “CHOMP-IONS!” — a hardcover coffee-table collector’s book from The Sun. Details at Florida.ChampsBook.com
This article originally appeared on The Gainesville Sun: How Florida basketball intends to regroup following latest close loss
