Florida Basketball: Three stats that doomed the Gators against Kentucky
The Florida Gators are adjusting to life without Colin Castleton as they play out the remainder of what has been a disappointment for Todd Golden and Florida basketball. Last night’s contest against Kentucky showcased a similar pattern we have seen from Florida all season: fall behind, make a comeback, fight until the end, but ultimately fall short.
Florida actually did some things well they normally don’t, such as shooting the ball from three with some level of success or a half-decent assist to made-basket ratio. But there were three key stats that Florida basketball couldn’t overcome that led to their defeat.
Florida Basketball: Crash the glass
One weak spot for Florida all season has been defensive rebounding. Collecting opponent misses at a rate of 73.4%, the Gators are only 186th in this category nationally.
Without Castleton though, this has turned into a straight up liability and it showed last night. Kentucky collected 12 offensive rebounds on 29 misses, giving Florida a defensive rebounding rate of just 59% last night.
To give context for how bad that is, Missouri has the worst season long defensive rebounding rate in the country at 64%.
No more blocks
Jason Jitoboh is a big body center that certainly requires attention, but he doesn’t quite have the quickness that Colin Castleton does to block shots. Last night Jitoboh had one block, and it was the only block a member of Florida basketball had.
This is a category Florida has been top ten in the country in, blocking opponent shots 8.9% on the time, but that rate has plummeted to 3.8% over the last three games and was 1.6% last night.
Forcing fouls
This may seem like nitpicking considering Florida got to the free throw line 20 times last night and made 14 of their attempts, but Florida has struggled all year at putting opponents in foul trouble.
Last night was no exception as Florida only forced Kentucky to foul on 18% of possessions. It may not seem liked a big deal since the fouls they were collecting were shooting fouls, but South Alabama has a season long rate of 18.5% and it is the worst in the country.
The domino effect of not forcing the opponent to pick up cheap fouls is that no one is ever in foul trouble. Antonio Reeves, who scored 16 points last night, was the closest Wildcat to foul trouble with three.