Florida's weakness turns into a strength as Gators run away from Ole Miss

The looming question mark that is going to follow the Gators into March Madness is whether or not they will be able to hit enough shots from outside when teams with size try to take away the paint. Three-point shooting woes have plagued the Gators all season, and even now, they are 342nd in the country at shooting from deep.

But Saturday in Oxford highlighted when everything goes correctly, what the ceiling for this team is as Florida shot 11-22 from three en route to a ho-hum 94-75 win over Ole Miss.

Florida shoots 50% from three in win over Ole Miss

If one had said prior to the game that Florida would have 19 turnovers against Ole Miss, there might have been alarm bells going off to put the Gators on upset alert. But Saturday was never really close as Florida took a ten-point lead just 11 minutes into the game and Ole Miss never got closer than eight points the rest of the way. 

A big part of why Florida made it look so easy despite the turnovers was finally hitting from deep. Urban Klavzar was 4-5, Boogie Fland was 3-6, and even Alex Condon knocked down a three to chip in.

Todd Golden touched on the hot shooting from deep after the game:

"I think it shows our ceiling. We try to play a certain style that gives us a high floor and allows us to play well through spans of not shooting the ball well. When we do make shots like that, we have the ability to run away from teams. And I thought today was an example of that because we sacrificed a lot of possessions offensively.

I think the game was like 77 possessions, and we gave away 19 of those to turnovers. So we had, what is that, 58 other opportunities to score? So we were pretty efficient when we took care of the basketball, and obviously that 3-point shooting allowed us to maintain and grow a lead, even when we weren't playing our best in terms of ball control."

As March gets closer, Florida won’t want Plan A to be 19 turnovers, but if they can find a way to capture Saturday’s shooting performance and break it out during the NCAA Tournament, the odds of the Gators cutting down nets in April keep going up.