Florida Gators: A tale of two halves, Tennessee defeats Florida in the finale
In the last game of the SEC regular season, Tennessee defeats the Florida Gators 65-54.
After an abysmal 18 turnover performance against Missouri, the Gators showed similar issues in a chippy battle against Tennessee. The matchup winner was awarded a double-bye in this week’s SEC Tournament, so the Gators now fall to the fifth seed. Florida will have a dreaded Thursday game against Texas A&M or Vanderbilt, who will play on Wednesday.
In the first half, the Gators were playing satisfactory basketball on the heels of guard Tyree Appleby.
Appleby carried the Gators with an 18-point performance, one-upping his 13 points that he had in the first meeting against the Vols. Appleby created his shots throughout the first half, filling a role that would usually be had by guard Tre Mann, who missed the game with a migraine headache.
Appleby’s slashing ability allowed the Florida offense to operate in the half-court, a problem that has haunted Florida throughout the Mike White tenure.
Once the second half came around, Florida could not get a high percentage shot and continued to use much of the shot clock, going nowhere. With no immediate scoring from Mann, Florida showed its true identity on offense without their best scorer, and it was bleak.
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With 4:48 left in the second half, the ESPN broadcast announced the Gators had scored on six of their last 28 offensive possessions.
Ouch.
After a 33 point first half for the Gators, Tennessee adjusted their defense to limit Florida’s drive and kick offense, one that hampered big men Colin Castleton and Anthony Duruji to score and rebound. Omar Payne came into the game and recorded two blocks, but that was about it for Florida’s production from their bigs.
Florida only scored 19 points in the second half, which is about one point for every minute on the floor. That’s not going to win you many basketball games, especially in March.
On defense, Florida struggled to contain Tennessee’s big man John Fulkerson in the paint, who had an epic 14 point, seven-rebound outing on his Senior Day. Despite the Volunteers 3-21 (14.3%) three-point shooting, the Gators allowed Tennessee to dictate the game’s pace and flow, which caused Florida to slow its offense down. The Volunteers took advantage of bad defense by the Gators by creating much of their points in the paint.
To make matters worse, the Gators also got abused on the boards, losing the rebounding battle 38-29, allowing 19 offensive rebounds.
It was clear that Tennessee wanted the fourth seed and the game more, as Florida was outhustled for much of the game.
Tennessee, who had an 8-0 run in the closing minutes of the first half, cut the Florida lead down to five before the first-half buzzer. The entire second half was all Tennessee, as they came out of the locker room with electric energy and simply took what they wanted.
With the loss today, the two teams split the regular-season series 1-1 as Florida ran the Volunteers out of the gym during the first meeting in Gainesville, 75-49.
Moving forward, the 13-8 (9-7 SEC) Florida Gators will have the SEC Tournament and NCAA Tournament to round out the 2020-21 Basketball season.