Florida basketball: A loss is a loss, but not all is bad for the Gators

Florida basketball fell to the Baylor Bears in a close game tonight in the Novavax NIT Season Tip-Off final by a score of 95-91.

The Gators jumped out to an early lead and a hot start shooting the ball, but couldn’t sustain their early success for all 40 minutes.

While we here at HFH don’t believe in moral victories, there are a lot of positives that Todd Golden and the Gators can take away from this one.

Hanging tough against the Bears tonight proved that this is a Gators team that can compete with almost anyone in the country.

Florida basketball: On the wrong side from deep

The story of the game was three-point shooting. Florida struggled a bit from long range, going 8-26 from deep (30.8%) while Baylor was hot from behind the arc going 14-25 (56%).

Digging into the box score a little more, there are some encouraging stats for Florida where they beat out Baylor.

The Gators outrebounded Baylor 38-33, had nine steals compared to the Bears’ six, and won the turnover battle by two.

A handful of Gators had big days offensively. Riley Kugel got back to his scoring ways with 25, including a 4-6 performance from three-point land. Tyrese Samuel continued his hot streak with 18 points on 7/8 from the field, and Zyon Pullin used the free throw line to his advantage to put up 17.

When Florida gets back home and looks back on this one, it’s important to remember that they were down a starter and still kept it to within four against a top-15 team in the country.

Micah Handlogten couldn’t go, so Florida was missing their starting big man. They went small ball and still competed, and had a shot to win the game until the very end.

The Gators lost tonight, but they proved that they’re a very good team with the roster to compete with anybody.